


Illogical Husbands: the prompt fills

by Cards_Slash



Category: Broadchurch, Masters of Sex
Genre: M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 04:11:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 21,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21030065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: A collection of mostly porn, but also some not porn, prompts from Tumblr involving Alec Hardy and Bill Masters





	1. After Sandbrook (smooches, pg-13)

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr.

It was the damage that Hardy couldn’t stop thinking about. The crime itself was horrendous. The sort of crimes that fell to him to investigate always were. You see enough of them and it leaves you feeling sullied, hollow, like you were less human than you’d started out. You kept company with murderers and rapists; you made it your business to figure them out, and you couldn’t figure them out if you couldn’t (a least a little bit, at least just enough to matter) understand why they’d done it. Hardy had sat in enough rooms filled with enough men lying to save their lives to know that the crime was only the start of it. The crime was the center of a devastating event.

Hardy had let it eat him up, he’d let it consume him until he was sure he’d die from it.

_Sandbrook_ was the name of the thing that tried to take his life. 

And now, now it was over. It was done. It had been _solved_.

All Hardy could think about was the damage, and he’d meant the damage done to the families that had lost children. He meant the damage done to everyone that had been touched by this horror. And the longer he sat, the longer he thought, the more it _hurt_. The more it became _personal_. The more the damage started to circle selfishly around the things he’d lost, and given up, and suffered.

His wife, and his daughter, and his own fucking _heart_.

But it was done.

“Planning on staying here?” Bill asked. He was standing to the side, hands in his pockets, hair blown ridiculously out of order by the wind off the water. There was nothing inconspicuous or spontaneous about his arrival. Bill was good enough not to provide any pretense to his presence.

“I don’t know what to do,” was more raw honesty than Hardy had intended to offer. But the words were spoken now, and they lingered between them. They grew in the air between them, they stretched like monsters, consuming everything. Because it was true. Hardy had _no_ idea what to do next. Not in this moment, or the next, or tomorrow or next week or ever again. He had thought he would die, and he made it his purpose to solve this one and he _had_.

And what a terrible thing to _know_ at last.

“Well,” Bill said. He invited himself to sit, and left no space between their thighs. The bench was big enough to provide personal space but Bill sat like he’d never heard of it. “I was going to suggest walking home. We might get something to eat if you’re feeling up to it, but we don’t have to.”

The tone was what made it genuinely ridiculous. Hardy had never met any of Bill’s children (but he’d seen photos of them). He couldn’t imagine what he thought the man would sound like when speaking to children. No, Bill was a proper adult, made of only proper adult things. But he spoke now like he had infinite patience, the way a father spoke to a child. Hardy’s lips quirked into a smile, or what would pass for one these days. He turned his head to level a stare at the other man.

Bill looked at him like an echo of his tone, with the greatest of patience, and the sort of love that you didn’t offer a casual fling. His posture pointed out he had nothing planned for the evening and he could wait indefinitely if necessary.

Hardy said, “people will start to stare.”

“People are staring,” Bill agreed, “but don’t hurry because of it.”

Hardy was running out of defenses. He was almost out of walls and dams to keep the storm of things at bay. “Get up,” he said. He shoved himself to his feet, spared a glare at the lingering passer-byers. 

Bill got up without any sort of violence.

“Who called you? Miller?”

“_Ellie_ did,” Bill said. (It had been a dark and terrible day when the two of them met properly and even darker and more terrible day when Hardy realized they were going to be friends.) His head pulled free from his jacket to loop loosely around Hardy’s. Bill’s face was soft, and unassuming, he moved closer by degrees. He was giving them both time to change their minds about it. (Mostly, he was giving Hardy all the time he needed to escape.) And when the space was gone, there was a hand on his shoulder and fingers threading through his and the slowest press of lips against his. 

Hardy’s eyes fluttered closed, and he pressed his free hand to Bill’s face. His fingertips were pressed across his ear and the tips of his hair. His palm was tracing the motion of their mouths. And Hardy wanted to tell him all the things he’d felt, and all the things he had never allowed himself to feel. He wanted to scream rage, and sorrow and _relief_. He wanted the years of his life back, he wanted his health returned, he wanted–

No. He wanted this, right here, this man who kissed him so sweetly and so briefly. The one that waited to know if his advances were welcome, and _helpful_. Alec pulled his hand free and wrapped his arm around Bill’s sturdy shoulders, he could only guess what they must look like, kissing like teenagers here. But _this_ is what he wanted, the taste of the man who loved him as the kiss deepened. The strum of his heart as it quickened at the grip of hands at his waist. The thrill of possibility that settled into his belly, and mostly–

Most of all,

The comfort of a man who cared, who would have waited, who had already waited. The one who smiled with crinkles at the corner of his eyes, right now, while they were out here embarrassing themselves. “We’re going to make headlines if we keep this up.”

Hardy looked sideways, and then back, “you said I could do anything I wanted.”

And what he wanted, after all this time, was to finally remember what it felt like to be _alive_.


	2. Bad at Kissing (pg-13)

It was just difficult to know what to say given the circumstances. Hardy was searching through all his available vocabulary while he leaned out of a kiss that could best be described as _awkward_ and more accurately called _awful_. He wasn’t known for his politeness, but it seemed like the occasion should call for some level of tact. (After all, he had just taken a transatlantic flight to get to this moment. This terrible, awkward, unforgiving moment.)

“Well,” Bill said. He was not suffering from the same confusion of words that had struck Hardy dumb. Rather than be polite about it and just stand very still and let the spit dry on his lips, he rubbed his mouth with the palm of his hand and cast a desperate, longing glance sideways. “Did you want a drink?”

Hell, Hardy wanted two drinks, he wanted three drinks. He wanted to drown the phantom sensation of an unexpected tongue wriggling into his mouth. He wanted to sear the flavor of the worst kiss of his life right off his tongue and retreat into the resulting stupor. And when he was done, and the moment was passed, he could quietly rearrange his departure date and go back to Broadchurch where nobody had any interest in kissing him. “That was awful,” did not sound very much like ‘yes I’d love a drink, thanks’.

Bill was holding a little liquor bottle in one hand and an empty ice bucket in the other. He was shocked into stillness, and wide eyes, and a blooming pink color to his cheeks.

“Blood awful,” Hardy repeated. (Just in case, his meaning had been unclear the first time.) “You’ve had a wife and an affair–you professionally study sex and that was your idea of a kiss?”

Bill set the ice bucket down with more civility than a man whose amorous abilities were being questioned should have. His tie was pulled loose and hanging down his chest, his sleeves were unbuttoned and half rolled, slipping down his forearms. He crossed his arms over his chest like building himself a defense and sneered right back at Hardy, “I don’t know what passes for a passion where you’re from.”

“Oh,” Hardy coughed, his hands were on his hips. They were facing off like agitated morons in the honeymoon suite, acting like they hadn’t been promising one another debauchery for weeks. “Don’t. Don’t act like it’s my fault. You–you–you just shoved your tongue in my mouth.”

Bill looked as surprised as he was scandalized. “You stood there like a frigid virgin!”

“A _frigid virgin_?”

“You’ve had a wife, you have a daughter! And Virginia and I didn’t kiss,” he added, like it had just slipped out, and one of his arms uncrossed to motion into the air. “Mostly, until the end–and then not often–that’s not the point! You were just standing there, doing nothing. That’s not a kiss.”

“So it’s not a kiss unless you’re sharing the taste of your dinner with your partner?” Hardy demanded. “I just got off a flight! I don’t need someone else’s tongue in my mouth, thank you.”

Bill had reached a point in the conversation where he could _not_ reply. He was just standing there, staring, with his mouth slightly open. He was searching through everything he’d ever known or seen or done to figure out what could possibly be said next.

“And before you start,” Hardy snapped, “of course we kiss with our tongues _where I’m from_. We’re just generally polite enough to wait until we’re invited first.”

“Invited?” Bill repeated.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” was the most exaggerated and insincere use of the words that Hardy had ever heard. They were accompanied by Bill’s arms uncrossing totally and his body dipping slightly forward. He didn’t move but gave all the impression of wanting very much to strangle Hardy. “How _rude_ of me to assume that I was _invited_. I must have been thinking about,” and he pulled his phone out of his pocket as if he had proof to support his claim, “how you said–”

“Oh shut up,” Hardy said, “I know what I said, I’m the one that said it. There’s a difference between planning and inviting. I had every intention of following through on my suggestions.”

Bill dropped the phone on the bed.

They were standing there, staring at one another like idiots, wasting the time they had been so desperate to have. Hardy considered how much his pride was really worth to him, and how much he very much wanted to slap the offensive smugness off Bill’s face. And how long it had been since anyone had touched him without medical intent. “We could try again,” he said.

“I’m not sure I want to.”

“Then don’t kiss me,” Hardy said. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head and dropped it on the floor at his side. “If could possibly find a way to lower yourself to follow through on your promises, I came a very long way to see if you’re as good as you say you are with your hands.”

Bill wavered, he hesitated, he lingered in place and then he just sighed. “I haven’t kissed anyone in a long time now. I may be out of practice.”

Whatever Bill’s definition of a ‘long time’ was, it certainly was less of a long time than Hardy’s. Rather than fall into the needlessness of competition over their lack of practice and prowess, Hardy pushed his pants down and stepped out of them. “We’ll practice on each other,” he said.

“Apparently we will,” Bill agreed. His smile was hopeful. 

“Take your clothes off,” Hardy said, like it needed saying. He was stripped down to his underclothes and his socks, crawling onto the massive bed without any sort of pretense. 

“Of course, sorry,” Bill agreed. He set to work stripping, stopped in the middle to fish through his luggage and pulled out a travel toiletries bag that he threw over to Hardy so he could concentrate on removing his unnecessary number of layers. 

Hardy unzipped it and snorted at the assortment of lube and condoms that was found inside. “Prepared for anything?” he asked.

“Well, anything but being a terrible kisser,” Bill agreed. He crawled onto the bed next to Hardy and smiled at him the way he had back at the airport. His hand slid up Hardy’s arm from his wrist to his shoulder and then pressed against his face. “Lets try again,” he whispered. “Slower this time?”


	3. Angry Kiss and Make Up (R)

One of the least desirable traits in a lover, in Bill’s opinion, was the utter refusal to apologize. A harmonious relationship required both parties to be able to admit to their own guilt and to make amends for their loud, brash behavior. For Bill himself, going through the motions of admitting his guilt was still a new, arduous process. He wasn’t accustomed to being held accountable.

But it was easy to forgive himself for not wanting to admit his own wrongdoings when it had been hours, and the best his lover had managed was a sideways glance and a lukewarm, ‘words were said.’

Words were said. A great deal of words were said, at a volume not appropriate for conversation. An argument was had. A scream match had ended in a draw.

Bill was holding a sweating glass of whatever liquor was closest, thinking about how he was always thinking about giving up on drinking. Alec was leaning forward with his elbows against his knees, glaring out at the empty street. The front porch was hardly the right place to start off another battle, but Bill was feeling vindictive and wounded. “Is that what passes for an apology in Scotland?”

“I wasn’t apologizing,” Alec said without looking at him.

Well, that was true. He hadn’t sounded very remorseful about the idea that _words were said_. At best it was an acknowledgement of their recent, shared history. “You don’t think you should?” Bill asked.

Alec did look at him then, he twisted around to stare at him, all furrowed brow and hateful eyes. Everything he’d said before was echoing out of his stiff shoulders and his curled fingers. It had been Bill’s fault to start with, he had mouthed off about cops to a man whose professional reputation had been utterly trashed. To a man who had been forced out of the job he loved for _medical reasons_. (By doctors, and what was Bill Masters? A doctor and a sex researcher and more often than not a true asshole.) “No,” Alec said.

Bill took a sip of his drink and tipped the rest over the side of the porch. “Fine,” he said. He turned to go back inside and barely made it to getting the door open before Alec was on his feet and right against his back following him in. The door swung shut with more force than necessary.

“You’re infuriating,” Alec hissed at him, “you’re an arrogant bastard. You–”

There were a great many things that Bill had done, and things he should have apologized for, but anger was a living beast inside of man. It changed the way the world looked, and felt, and that must have been why he dropped the glass to shove Alec back against the wall. The man hadn’t touched him at all, but his presence was like a pressure against his back. It was implied violence that Alec was too polite to make into reality. 

But Bill?

Well, Bill was a beast of a man, and he could shove his lover against the wall and follow after him. He could pin his lover by the wrists, and shove a knee between his thighs, and bare his teeth with a hiss of anger that was more fit for a wild animal than a man. “I’m not the only bastard in this room,” he said through his clenched teeth.

Alec’s face was flushing, his body was stretched as long as it had ever been, his skinny legs were split around Bill’s thigh but there was no remorse in his silence. He tipped his head so his chin was jutting out and his neck was bare. His wrists turned in Bill’s grip but he didn’t try to get free. That was the difference between them, Alec’s anger had strategy and Bill’s was brutish. “Is this how you apologize?” Alec asked.

No.

Bill kissed him like a fist to the mouth. His body pressed up against Alec’s, his fingers digging into fragile wrist bones, and when Alec’s mouth opened under the pressure Bill was pushing his tongue in like he could take something that was being offered by force. He wasn’t expecting the way Alec rolled his hips so he was rubbing up the length of Bill’s thigh.

He wasn’t expecting the man to enjoy himself.

Bill was biting Alec’s throat and the man was tipping his head back to give him all the space he needed. He was shameless, like this was a fight he could only win by proving how much he liked it. As if he had started it, as if he had forced Bill to pin him here. 

Bill jerked his hips forward and Alec’s body hit the wall again, they were pressed together so tightly anyone could be forgiven for thinking they were just one person. And Alec was smiling at him like a proper monster, eyes narrow and glittering and lips as red as apple peels. He didn’t say a single fucking word but the meaning was clear enough.

He couldn’t be dominated, he couldn’t be bullied, he couldn’t be cowed into place and Bill would waste the whole of his life trying.

It should have been a sobering realization, but it was as infuriating as the argument had been. He loosened his grip on Alec’s hand to grab him by the hair. Alec’s hand slithered between their body to grab Bill by the dick and the two of them were–

Just staring.

Bill’s hand was twisting in Alec’s hair, pulling it so hard it had to hurt like hell, making his head tip so far back it had to be hard to breathe.

And Alec’s hand was so tight around his dick that the fabric of his pants felt like it was being imprinted on his flesh. It was verging into unbearable, and neither of them showed any signs of stopping.

“Fuck you,” Bill hissed.

Alec smiled at him, a quick quirk of his lips, “if you’re not careful you’ll never be able to fuck anyone again.” His hand twisted and the agony of the pain was enough to make his hand loosen and his body jerk back. Alec let him go instantly and sagged away from where he’d been pinned up against the wall.

Bill was breathing like he’d run a marathon and Alec was rubbing the back of his head with a wince of pain. They were regarding one another, gearing up for another bout of this stupid fight. Bill was thinking that walking away was better than staying but he’d never been a smart enough man to manage it. 

Alec’s hands dropped to his belt, his fingers made quick work of buckle, and button and zipper so his pants were sliding off his skinny hips. He kicked his shoes off toward the door and stepped forward to grab Bill by the waistband. “Pull my hair again and I’ll cut your cock off,” he said in counterpoint to how he was shoving Bill’s pants down. 

“You can’t say that,” Bill gasped.

“I just did,” Alec assured him. He might have said more but Bill kissed him again, with no less violence than the first time. His arms were around Alec’s back, pulling him forward and crushing him in place. The man’s long arms were around his body, his blunt fingernails scratching down Bill’s back. He tolerated the kiss for a moment, allowed the tongue in his mouth and the clash of their teeth. And then Alec’s hands folded over his shoulders and pushed him down.

It wasn’t even a surprise, Bill always seemed to end up here when he fucked up. It wasn’t exactly like begging for forgiveness, but he always ended up on his knees regardless. 


	4. "First one to make a noise loses." R

“Are you alright, Alec?” the blonde one asked. It had to have been her, because she’d offered him the barest of side-glances, between one topic of dinner conversation and the next, the way any hostess checked on her guests to make sure everyone was fine-just-fine. She’d glanced and she’d seen his face in what he hoped was a typical scowl, and she’d looked down at his hand curled up in a fist against the top of the table. His fork and his knife were laying across his plate with no indication that he’d made any attempt to use it lately.

She’d narrowed her eyes, and slid her focus sideways and she’d found Bill, her boss and best friend, sitting there with a pleasant smile on his face. Bill was holding a conversation with Virginia about something-or-something else. It sounded like politics or sex or politicians having sex. Bill was eating with his left hand, as naturally as you pleased, as if he had always been ambidextrous and that wasn’t a new, fascinating discovery to make.

Betty had eagle eyes and a vicious smile, because she’d noticed the motion of Bill’s arm (and how, how could she have noticed it? How could she have noticed anything when Bill’s hand was moving so slowly it was more torture than anything? When his fingers were slow dancing– Rather than outrage, she had twisted up with _delight_, and her stare had slid back to him. Her tongue had peaked out of the corner of her mouth and she shifted in her seat so she could look at him more naturally.

Bill had noticed, he must have noticed, because he’d walked his fucking fingers up Alec’s crotch to his zipper and eased it down. The sound was covered by a round of laughter that should have waken the baby (Hardy hadn’t seen a baby but he was told there was one). Virginia was retelling a story with a great deal of hand waving and it must have been _hilarious_ because nobody was paying any attention to him except Betty.

Betty was licking mashed potatoes off her fork like she was staring in a food based pornography. She lifted an eyebrow when Bill’s hand found Hardy’s cock in his pants. She smiled at him as he squeezed his eyes closed because it was far-far past too late to offer objections. It had been all over and done with as soon as Bill’s hand slid up the inside of his thigh. 

And he’d been locked in a staring contest with a sadist of a woman, who had stretched the moment out-and-out. Who had laughed at him under the guise of following with the story in progress. She’d wound the tips of her hair around her fingertips and shifted on her chair and back again, and when she knew, when she could see the flush crawling up his neck–she’d finally, _finally_ spoken. _Are you alright, Alec_? Are you alright, like they were friends and she didn’t know he was getting jacked off under the dining room table in front of a collection of women that weren’t offended to be considered Bill’s friends.

He was going to cum in his pants like an idiot, and now everyone was looking over at him with refreshed interest. Virginia said, “now remember he doesn’t like being called Alec,” like the last thing she wanted to hear ever again was his rambling dissertation on his name (and names in general). 

“Best not to get him start again,” Bill said agreeably. His hand hadn’t ceased, no, no, his hand had squeezed a little tighter, but the slide had been smoother because he was collecting up the precum.

“I wasn’t in the room,” Betty said, because she was filled up with petty joy at awful situations, “why is it you don’t like being called Alec?” She over pronounced his name. She made the C at the end sharp and present, and Bill was looking at him with such expectation.

Hardy’s fist was pressing against the table so hard he thought he might be breaking bones, and that bastard with a hand on his dick was participating in this exploitation as if he were ever going to get laid again.

Betty’s wife (because being jacked off wasn’t really embarrassing enough until it happened in front of happily married lesbians he was meeting for the first time) frowned when she figured it out, not at him and not at Bill but at Betty. “I think I hear the baby,” she said. “Virginia did you want to help me get him up?”

“Oh,” Virginia said as her stare lingered on how deeply amused Bill was, “sure, yes, I’d love to.”

“_Betty_,” Helen said, “you should make him a bottle.”

“I didn’t hear the baby,” Betty said.

Hardy grabbed Bill’s wrist under the table because he was not going to cum in front of a crowd. His body was losing the ability to be still, and there was no decent reason for him to collapse onto the table or arch back into the chair, so he was pressing his feet so hard to the floor he might be leaving a permanent impression of the soles of his shoes. 

“I did,” Helen assured her. “Bottle.” Then she looked over at them, with an uncertain smile and ushered Virginia out of the room. 

That left the two of them with Betty taking her time about dropping her napkin on the table and Bill accepting that he’d been stilled as he started squeezing and loosening his fist instead. “Well,” Betty said as she got to her feet like there was no use in hurrying, “I’m sure we’ll all take a few minutes. It sure wouldn’t be very polite of you to make a mess at my table, boss.” She winked at him as she turned with a swish of her skirt and went toward the kitchen.

Hardy sucked a breath in through his clenched teeth and snarled, “I’m going to kill you,” as soon as they could be reasonably thought to be out of earshot.

Bill’s smile wasn’t worried in the least, his cheeks were pink and pleased as he slid out of his chair and ducked under the table. Hardy collapsed backward, legs sprawled open, arms hanging at his side, and hoped that nobody walked back in before Bill put his mouth to good use.


	5. "don't be so rough.  there can't be an marks" | E

“Christ,” Hardy gasped. One of his hands was pushing at the headboard and the other was threading his sweaty hands through Bill’s hair. It was still tangled up from sleeping, damp with sweat and absolutely _wild_. Hardy might have had time to think a haircut was in order, except for the fingertips that were digging into the meat of his ass to pull his hips off the bed. His cock–his throbbing, desperate cock–slid across the eager press of Bill’s tongue. 

It was hard to feel too many things at once, the quiver in his stomach, the ache of his thighs being spread open and hanging so long, the wrinkled sheets leaving prints in his shoulders. He could feel Bill’s fingertips biting into his skin as he pulled off Hardy’s cock with a loud, wet slurp. His face was pink with exertion, his half-grown beard was _soaked_ in drool and streaked with the cum he’d been milking out of Hardy’s defenseless cock. 

And his smile, Bill’s smile was always brightest, and best, and most breathless when he was showing his easy, sadistic mastery of Hardy’s body. He was full of himself now, trying to exhibit some sense of fondness and managing only to look proud. He sat back on his knees as his tongue lapped at the edges of his mouth, and he scratched his nails from the tops of Hardy’s thighs to the inside of his knees. It hurt like an echo, like a reminder of Bill’s body caught between his knees, held in place by Hardy’s clenching thighs and–

“I could eat you,” Bill said. His voice was low, and heavy, and _promising_. He dipped forward to run his inexhaustible tongue up Hardy’s spent cock from base to tip.

“I think you already have,” Hardy said. He ran his fingers through Bill’s hair, rested one on his shoulder, thought how nice it would be nap for a bit. (There was the matter of reciprocation still. It would be nice to make Bill feel as good as he felt now.) 

“Have I?” was a question whispered into his belly, repeated by the grip of Bill’s hands around his hips. Bill’s teeth were as sharp as his fingernails, nipping at his skin hard enough to leave bright-red-sunbursts behind. Hardy’s skin was a raw nerve, still taut and singing. He jerked up and Bill’s hands tightened like a reflex and shoved him down. Bill laughed like the ghost of a breath, spreading across his overheated skin. His tongue was a promise and a threat, trailing up to lap across his nipple. “Still hungry,” he said before his mouth closed. He sucked on Hardy’s tit the way he’d sucked his cock.

“Fuck,” Hardy gasped. He arched again and those awful, unforgiving hands on his hips held him down. His fists tightened in Bill’s hair because he could do with more of _that_. His cock was reversing course, plumping up hopefully. 

Bill’s teeth dug into skin just beneath his nipple with enough force to make it _hurt _properly. Any other time he would have taken it as an assault and here he gasped out a breath as he pulled Bill closer and–

“Fuck,” Hardy gasped. He twisted his hands in Bill’s hair and yanked him back. “Don’t be so rough,” because he’d forgotten. “There can’t be any marks.” 

Bill said nothing but glanced down at all the pink-pressure bruises that he’d already left. Hardy’s body was a map of evidence of exactly what they’d been doing. 

“I have a medical examination,” Hardy said.

“Oh,” Bill said, “you have very fair skin.” His fingers pressed into the mark he’d just left with no sense of shame or worry. “You shouldn’t have to take the shirt all the way off, just unbutton it a bit.”

Hardy frowned to him.

Bill leaned forward to kiss him, “yes, fine,” he said, “I’ll wait to ravish you.” For a moment it seemed like that was the abrupt end. Bill fell to the side, laid back and reached a hand down to grip his own cock like he’d forgotten it. “Lend a hand?” he asked.

“Just a hand?” Hardy asked, but he rolled onto his side. He wrapped his hand around Bill’s cock, felt how hot and hard and _ready_ it was. He might have sat up and put his mouth on it, but Bill pulled him forward to kiss him deep and sloppy.


	6. "If we get caught I'm blaming you." | E

Alec had given no indication, not even the slightest twitch at the edge of his lips, that he had any emotion at all regarding Bill’s offices. He had suffered through a long, rambling tour that had been lead by Betty. He had stood in Virginia’s office with a pained, awkward half-smile stuck on his face and his hands resolutely at his sides. He had been as animated as a scarecrow when taken through the various treatment rooms (not currently in use). He had withstood a variety of innuendo. 

He had been unflinching in the face of Betty’s relentless smiling, and her _obvious_ amusement at finally getting access to Bill’s transatlantic love affair. The only thing more impressive than Betty’s amusement was Alec’s absolute refusal to rise to the bait. He had barely managed anything more energetic than breathing.

So, Bill had not been prepared for the sound of his office door being closed, or for the quiet click of the lock turning. He couldn’t have predicted how quiet and yet intrigued Alec sounded when he said, “is that normal? Office doors having locks?” His fingers lifted up to touch the blinds hanging half-open over the large window facing the lobby. 

“I’m sure it is,” Bill said. He squinted out through the blinds, saw Betty walking back to her desk with a fun little jaunt to her step. She was sure to be calling her wife, sharing all the details that were worth sharing. Maybe Virginia would visit, maybe they would chat about their opinions. 

Alec’s fingers spread across the edge of his desk, the slid slowly along the polished wood. He was looking at the framed diplomas behind the desk with a distasteful smirk on his lips. When his fingers reached the end of the desk he turned to look at the top of it. He took stock of the orderliness, the lack of sentimental adornments. There was a photograph of his children in one corner, and a lamp, and nothing else that could be misconstrued as personal. Alec’s eyebrow twitched up, his face didn’t change from the impassive observation it had maintained thus far.

“You locked the door,” Bill said. He would have been lying if it hadn’t gotten a little harder to breath now than it had been before. He had expected some manner of teasing from his lover, some gentle ribs about how frivolous and overdressed his offices were. (He had hired someone to make the place inviting, and it must have worked because business was good.) “Uh,” he ran his hand down his shirt front as he watched Alec’s hand come to rest softly on the back of his desk chair. “Why?”

“Have you had sex in this office?” Alec asked him. 

“What?” Bill said, like a gasp, he looked sideways and then back at Alec, and then out through the small gaps in the blinds. He could see the bright-bright yellow of Betty’s dress as she stood by her desk. “_No_.”

“Then where,” Alec asked. He shifted how he was standing, and Bill shifted to mirror him. He should have been paying more attention and it might not have been a surprise when the back of his thighs hit the desk behind him. It wouldn’t wouldn’t have made him draw in a breath–sharp and stinging. “You said you started your affair at the office.”

Bill’s face was turning pink, he looked out–toward the blinds that he couldn’t quite see through anymore. He was straining his ears to hear the sound of approaching steps. “Different office, we worked at a hospital.”

Alec’s hands rested on Bill’s hips, his fingers were coiling up in his shirt, tugging it up by degrees, dragging it out of the cinched-tight waistband of his pants. He made a noise in the back of his throat, an assessing sound with a possessive twist. Now that he’d gotten the shirt free, his fingertips slipped inward, his knuckles skating along Bill’s belly. “So never here?” 

Bill wasn’t ready for his belt to be pulled loose. He wasn’t _prepared_ for Alec’s fingers to slide down into his pants, to undo his pants button. He jumped at the sound of the zipper being undone. His hands seized Alec’s wrists and held him still. “What are you doing?” he hissed. 

Alec’s head tilt accused him for being an idiot. He didn’t say a single damn word as his knees bent and his body dropped. Bill’s grip on his arms was useless against the dirty promise of an unexpected blowjob. And his heart was thrumming, just _drumming_ so hard against his breastbone he could feel it vibrating in his skin. He was embarrassingly hard even before Alec’s hands pulled him free from his pants. 

The blinds were the problem. The blinds had not been fully closed. The blinds were _open_, if only a little. They were wavering in place, being gently moved by the air conditioner kicking on. 

The blinds were _open_ and Alec’s warm-wet-welcome mouth was on his dick. Bill jerked at the touch of his tongue. His hands slapped the desk on either side, his fingers clenched. He couldn’t look _down_, he couldn’t _look_, because if he _looked_, he’d see how Alec’s hair swayed with the motion of his hair. He’d see how silky and irresistible it looked. He’d have to _touch_ if he _looked_, and his fingers always slipped so easily through Alec’s hair. He couldn’t resist it, he couldn’t help himself, he would have _to_ card his fingers through Alec’s hair. He’d push it away from his face.

He’d have to see how lovely and pink Alec’s skin went when he was enjoying himself. He’d have to remember his freckles, and the touch of his eyelashes on his cheeks. He’d have to think about his mouth, rubbed red and stretched by Bill’s dick.

No, Bill couldn’t look down. He looked over, at the blinds, and the blur of motion beyond them. He couldn’t see anything but light moving.

“Oh God,” he gasped and shoved his fist up into his mouth. He groaned out, “I’m blaming you if we get caught.”

Alec’s answer was to pull off his dick, and grip him with a loose fist. “Would you like me to stop?” he asked while he jerked Bill’s dick without any indication that he was even willing to stop if that’s what Bill asked for. (And why would anyone ask him to?) “I could stop,” he offered.

Bill had looked, and now he _had_ to touch. His fingers threaded through Alec’s hair and the man spared him an almost smug smile before he leaned forward again. 

The quiet was damning, it was hell. There was only the sound of Alec’s mouth, and Bill’s dick, and the clink of the blinds against the window. There was the soft wheeze of the air conditioning. And Bill’s throat croaking encouragements through his clenched teeth. Things like:

“Oh God,” and “fuck,” and, “_Alec_.” 

His hand was curved around the back of Alec’s head, feeling how slick and slippery his hair was. He was massaging Bill’s thighs, squeezing and kneading them, and his mouth was bobbing up and down Bill’s dick with _urgency. _

Bill was biting the meatiest part of his hand, offering a strangled warning that he was coming like it mattered. As if Alec had ever pulled off at the last moment, but it was still _polite_. Alec sucked him until he couldn’t stand it, until he had to push him back. “Stop,” he said, “please stop.”

Alec crawled up his body, one of his skinny arms sliding under Bill’s to wrap around him and the other hand framing his face to pull him into a kiss. It was all hot tongue and cum flavored. It was as intense as getting his dick sucked, with his helpless fists pulling at the back of Alec’s shirt. He was trying to _catch_ up, feeling all the while like he’d missed something important. 

He thought there must be some expectation of reciprocation, but Alec leaned out of the kiss and wiped his mouth with a quick swipe of his fingers. “I should let you get to work.”

“Work?” Bill repeated. He glanced down at his dick still hanging out of his pants, and tucked himself back in. 

Alec was already half way to the door, pausing only long enough to dust off his knees. “I need a nap, I’ll see you at home?”

“Uh,” Bill hadn’t even gotten his belt done up. “Yeah, home. Good.” Good? It was almost embarrassing how he couldn’t think up words. “Thank you.”

Alec snorted. “You’re welcome.” He pulled open the door to show himself out.


	7. "I've never wanted anyone to fuck me this badly" | E

“Fuck.” Elevators were not meant to be used the way Bill was using this one. They were public spaces, meant for public use. He spared a thought, a brief, half-thought, about the poor bastard that had to clean the elevators. Just, try as he might, he couldn’t _hold_ onto that thought. He couldn’t quite hold onto anything but Alec’s skinny waist. Even that, he wasn’t satisfied with.

No.

No, he was pushing his hands up, dragging the shirt with him, searching for warmer skin and better sounds. Alec was arching against his body, away from the cool-cool metal of the metal bar behind him. There was music playing over their head, and the distant sound of the mechanics of the elevator taking them up-and-up to their floor. But Alec’s breath was louder, and closer. The slick, wet sound of his tongue sliding into Bill’s mouth was more present and more perfect. 

Bill’s hands were scraping down Alec’s chest, but _Alec’s _hands were around his back, falling down to pull at his ass. And Bill had never heard a better idea than to jerk forward, to grind his thickening dick against Alec’s body, and the sound of them hitting the elevator wall reverberated through the empty space around them. Alec’s head dropped back, his thighs parted to make space for Bill’s and his fingernails dug into his ass to pull him forward harder. 

“We can’t do this,” Alec said to the lights over their head.

Bill agreed with the idea. He’d been thinking the very same. It was just wildly different to think that they really shouldn’t be doing this. Alec shouldn’t be rocking his hips to grind his dick against Bill’s thigh. Bill shouldn’t be sucked on Alec’s neck as he undid his belt.

The elevator stilled, and the doors pinged before they open. The hallway was empty (thank God). Alec pushed him back so he could dip down and grab his luggage off the floor. “Got the key?” he asked. His belt was open and jingling as he walked. “What room?”

Bill led the way, opened the door with fumbling fingers and held it open so Alec could duck into the room. He hadn’t made it farther than the length of the open door before he dropped his luggage on the ground with a clatter. His jacket went next, and his shoes. His long-long fingers were on his pant’s button when Bill grabbed him by the face to pull him into another kiss. 

“God I missed you,” Bill said between one kiss and the next.

Alec’s was stepping out his pants. “Yeah?” he said with a smile. He was quick as lightning undoing every button on his shirt. It slid back off his bony shoulders like a whisper, leaving him all but completely naked. “Take your clothes off.”

Bill moved slower, with no less urgency, pulling off his T-shirt and stepping out of his pants as he walked toward the bed. Alec was already pulling back the covers, wearing nothing but his socks. 

“Fuck,” Bill whispered. He had arrived at the hotel the day before, unpacked and put away his things. He’d thought (then) that he should have put the lube and condoms in the nightstand. He had thought he wouldn’t be able to stand being near this man without having the urge to fuck him, and then he’d decided they’d most likely go to dinner. He’d convinced himself that Alec wouldn’t want to get off a plane and jump immediately into bed for sex purposes. Bill had left the sex supplies in the bathroom. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll start without you,” Alec assured him. And he did, he was laying against the pillows, legs spread and hand stroking his cock with minimal urgency. He was smiling when Bill saw him. “I’ll finish without you too,” he said.

“No you won’t.” Bill threw the supplies up at the head of the bed and grabbed Alec by his ankle to pull him to the center. It was easy to crawl right up between his spread legs. “Tell me what you want,” he said.

Alec arched to make himself more comfortable, rested his feet against the bed with his knees hanging open. He had one arm behind his head and the other hand still holding his cock. “Fuck me,” he said.


	8. "Watch me." | E

Alec was _annoyed_. It seemed unlikely. It seemed _far-fetched_. It seemed out of place at the moment, when just seconds ago he’d been gasping for breath. No, not gasping, fully and totally breathless. He’d _finally_ gone still, just for a moment, back arched, eyes closed, neck bare. Alec’s thighs had quivered, his body had clenched around Bill’s cock in his ass, and he’d finally, _finally_ gone still. 

Bill had taken advantage of the moment. He’d run his hand up Alec’s body to curl loosely around his neck. He’d thought about pulling him down, about kissing him again. They were good at kissing most days, slow and thorough. It had been months since they’d had the chance last, and they barely had a week this time to get in all the kissing that would last them. Oh, yes, he’d very much like to kiss Alec.

He’d tugged, and Alec and leaned away from it, his eyes opened just enough to look down at him. His mouth twitched into a grimace, and his hand had grabbed Bill’s by the wrist. His posture stiffened, his voice was thick, and dark, and _threatening_. “I’m busy,” he said.

“With my cock in you?” Bill asked.

Alec leaned forward, his hair fell away from his sweat-damp forehead. He wasn’t smiling, but his lips were quirked upward while he considered the words. His knees dented the bed as he shifted his weight forward. “No touching,” he said as he pushed Bill’s hands into the pillows under his head. 

“Now wait a minute,” Bill objected. He pushed himself halfway up to sitting and barely made it before Alec was shoving him back down.

“_Watch_ me,” Alec said again, with the same growl of anger, “don’t touch me.”

Bill was willing to consider the demand. He relaxed into the pillows with his hands by his sides, lingering near but not quite touching. Alec watched him for a moment, kept his fingertips pressed against Bill’s chest in case he got _ideas_ about disobeying. And when he was satisfied (at last) that he was going to be obeyed, he ran his fingers down Bill’s chest and up onto his own legs. His fingers were gripping the meat of his own thighs so hard he was leaving pressure marks beneath his fingertips. 

Alec lifted up, moving so slowly the drag of Bill’s dick sliding out of him must have been agony, and when he’d gone as far as he could stand he dropped down again. His breath was a series of vowels, an indecipherable attempt at communication. He shifted forward and then back, rocking in place, working out how he could best put Bill’s cock to use. “Sit up a bit,” he said.

They worked together, shifting and maneuvering until Bill was leaning against the headboard. Alec’s hand was wrapped around the top of it, his body was leaning back. His cock was jutting up against his belly, hot and hard and pink, leaking precum into the dark hair that covered his body. He was moving by inches, pulling back and pushing forward again-and-again without sparing one God damn moment of concern for how it felt for anyone else.

No, Alec was scratching his fingernails up his own thigh, grinding Bill’s cock in his ass, making noises like he’d never felt any _better_. He was selfish, and _shameless_, and untouchable. His head was tipped back, and his hair was a disaster of feathery wisps, his neck was dripping sweat, his pink-pink mouth was hanging open. And he groaned, from the bottom of his body, so low that Bill could feel it vibrating around his dick, he said, “fuck.”

“Any time you’re ready,” Bill whispered. He wasn’t touching, because he wasn’t supposed to touch. So his hands were twisted up in sheets. He couldn’t touch, so he pressed his heels into the bed and his shoulders into the headboard behind him and thrust up with his hips. It made Alec lift up, and drop again, it made that groan shake loose again. It made his head snap forward, and his hand drop from the headboard to Bill’s shoulder.

Alec’s eyes were _glittering_, his smile was _careless_. He said, “_cheater_,” with a grin.

Bill didn’t touch him with his hands, but he fucked up into his body again. It was a loud slap of skin, and Alec’s grip clenched around his shoulder. His stomach quivered, his cock jumped. “I thought about you,” Bill said (because he couldn’t touch), “I thought about you just like this. Look at you, look at how desperate you are to take my cock. Look at how much you _love _it. You love how it feels in you, don’t you? How hard I am, how thick, how _deep_?”

Alec’s eyes fluttered closed, he clenched around Bill as he bared his teeth. His skin was blushing deeper as he listened. 

“I thought about how you’d feel. I _love _how you feel. I love how you stretch around me, I love how _tight _you are. I love knowing I’m the only one that’s ever had you like this, the only one that ever will. I love knowing how much you want me.”

“I do,” Alec agreed. His fingers were spread into Bill’s hair, he was jerking back to meet every thrust of Bill’s hips. There was a growling impatience in the sound of his voice. His eyes opened enough to focus on his face. His tongue was licking his own lips, like he was having thoughts not fit to be said. “You have a filthy mouth.”

“Let me make you feel good,” Bill said. He wasn’t touching, but he wanted to. He wanted to crush Alec to his body, to roll him over, to fuck him until they were both spent. It would be good, because it was _always_ good. 

Alec was bouncing on his cock, moving faster, and _harder. _“Shut up,” Alec said, and, “watch. Just watch.” The words were shivering the way his body was. But he kept moving, rocking, and bouncing and _fucking _himself. 

“Let me touch you,” Bill said, “look at your cock, you’re ready to cum. I can feel you, feel how you’re clenching, how you’re so _close_, and I could do it for you, just let me touch you, just let me put my hand on you…”

Alec shouted a noise that couldn’t have been a word, gasped, “_fuck_,” as he came with utter amazement, as if he hadn’t expected it to happen. And his whole body was _shaking_ with it. He was tight-as-hell, and _quivering_ all inside. His cum was all over Bill’s chest, dripping off the hair on his chest, puddling into the dip of his belly button. Alec was _heaving_ for breath, and _smiling_, as he rubbed his thumb across the drops of cum on Bill’s neck. “Your turn,” he said, “how do you want me?”

(As if Bill had any ability to think after _that_.)


	9. "You're not going out in that outfit." | R

“You’re not…” 

It was not Hardy’s fault that his mouth had suffered a malfunction. His brain knew exactly what it wanted to say. It wanted to grab Billy by his arms, drag him backward across the threshold and growl something like, _nobody sees those thighs but me_. It seemed like the only possible thing he could have done; like the only thing a man would do if put into his very same position.

“…Going out in that outfit,” he said. He sputtered it. He choked on every word. None of them were the ones he wanted, and none of them were spoken to Bill’s face. They were all said to this thighs: his perfect, pale, _firm_ thighs. This normally-trapped-in-business-attire thighs. His never-seen-the-sun thighs.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Bill demanded. His hands were on his hips, over the drawn-tight waistband of the shorts he’d chosen to wear. They were a darkish color, maybe black or navy blue or very, very dim gray. They had white lines at the hems the way sports shorts tended to have. “I _am_ going running.”

Hardy had gotten dressed for business purposes. He was doing interviews today, like they’d agreed. He was taking _meetings. _He was being sent out into the mad American workforce to investigate if he’d be able to cope with it. Bill didn’t see the point in it, but that was because Bill had always had a housewife and he must have seen no reason not to have a house-boyfriend (or husband, or lover, or partner, or whatever they ended up being). Hardy was going _out_, and he was wearing a suit with a new tie. He was wearing dress shoes. 

Bill was wearing a stretched-tight T-shirt. He was wearing tall socks, and running shoes and those fucking _shorts_. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been just a little bit more ridiculous. (Or if Bill hadn’t gone off and gotten all self-conscious about his weight.) “What?” Bill said.

What was Bill’s thighs. Bill’s perfectly sinful thighs. He was shifting on his feet. The muscles in his thighs were flexing beneath his unblemished skin. The little hairs were standing up under the attention, and all Hardy could concentrate on was–

“Alec,” Bill said. He stepped forward and hooked a hand under his chin to pull his face up. “You’re being ridiculous. You’re not even talking.”

Hardy leaned in, got one hand on the back of the open door and pushed it hard enough that it swung shut with a resounded clap of sound. He was pulling his tie loose with the other hand. Bill took a startled step backward and Hardy followed him. There was no telling what hit the wall first, Hardy’s hand or Bill’s back. “You’re _not_,” he said again, “going out in those _fucking_ shorts.”

Because out in the world were men and women with greedy eyes who had no idea what Bill’s legs looked like. They had never seen his legs in motion, never seen them covered in a fine sheen of sweat, never felt the quiver of muscle beneath their tongue. They’d never sank their teeth into them, never pulled those thighs around their body and felt how _strong_ and _tight_ when they squeezed. 

No. Those strangers had never run their hands along the soft, sensitive insides of Bill’s thighs just to feel the warmth. They’d never crouched between them, with a wet-and-eager mouth, working their way from his knees to his cock. But they’d think about as soon as they saw Bill in those fucking shorts. They’d make all their daydreams linger over the sounds that Bill must make when dragged your teeth across his skin.

Maybe they’d think about fucking him, about bending him over and hooking their hands around his thighs. They’d wonder how it must have felt to dig soft-round-bruises into those thighs.

No. Bill wasn’t leaving the fucking house in those _fucking_ shorts. 

Bill was looking at him with a smile that already _knew_ the reason. His hands were running down his shirt front, his face caught up in some attempt at faking confusion he couldn’t quite manage. “I thought you’d like the shorts,” he said.

“I do,” Hardy assured him. And then he wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. 


	10. "You're so fucking hot when you're mad." | NC-17

Drinking was one of the few joys that Hardy had really come to appreciate in his new life. It was one thing to long for a drink when you _knew _that you were going to die and it was another one entirely to treat yourself to a bottle of wine and a thorough snoop through your lover’s obnoxiously bland dwelling. (Maybe there were better words for this place than dwelling. Perhaps _apartment_ or _condominium_ or even _place of residence_ would work as well. It didn’t matter what it was actually called so long as nobody tried to call it a _home_. It wasn’t a home. It was barely lived in.) 

Hardy’s only exciting find had been a shoebox of baseball cards. It was almost embarrassing how bland Bill’s life was outside of his work.

Still, Hardy wasn’t without a moral scale. He’d done his snoop, drank a few glasses of wine, and then he’d made dinner. It was meant to be fish, and it was still fish. It was just that it had been much more fish-like when it had actually been _ready_ and that was hours ago now.

Well, an hour and six minutes and the better part of that bottle of wine he’d started. Hardy hadn’t had a proper drink in years; he didn’t even remember what being drunk felt like. Presently, he was _pleasantly_ at ease with the situation. 

Yes, Bill had said he wasn’t going to work while Hardy was here.

And _yes_, they had both known that was a lie. Their visits had become regular, and often, and it wasn’t like Hardy had managed to stop crime from happening when Bill visited him.

Of course, Bill’s work involved watching people fucking and that wasn’t exactly the same thing as catching a murderer. You couldn’t tell Bill that they didn’t have basically the same job because Bill had spent his life striving to be taken seriously.

Bill took himself very seriously.

But the point was, Bill had said he wouldn’t work _late_. Any time that Hardy would have qualified as _late_ had passed them by and it was now very _late_. Dinner couldn’t be salvaged at this point, but Hardy was ok with that. 

Hardy was slouching into the couch that didn’t seem like it had been sat on since the delivery men dropped it in place. The upholstery was still crisp, the cushions were firm and it felt _cold_. 

That, too, was perfectly fine. Hardy was warm enough. He’d taken his shirt off when he was cooking. That was probably the wine and not the temperature. His body remembered how the taste of a good wine, the smell of a private dinner, and the promise of sex all went together. Wine was from the far-away days of his marriage, when his wife’s mouth was never more delicious than it was when it stained with fine-red-wine.

Bill didn’t like wine. Bill was a liquor man, quick-and-dirty as you could get. Bill didn’t want to drink, he wanted to be _drunk_ and that was the reason they didn’t drink together. Hardy liked the slip into intoxication but he wanted to relax into it.

Oh, and he definitely had. He was slouching into the couch, one hand rubbing his palm against the smooth-cool-fabric. He was concentrating on that touch, on how it warmed beneath his hand, how it made his skin tingle. How the lazy, unhurried fingers of his right hand were tiptoeing from laying on his knee to resting on the crotch of his pants. 

Oh hell, he was getting a hard on from a fucking couch cushion.

The door slammed. (Of course it did. Bill Masters was a man accustom to sole ownership. He wasn’t the sort that could stomach the idea that anything he loved or wanted to fuck might get their needs met elsewhere.) There was the man himself, summoned to the living room, with his tie wrapped around his fist like he’d ripped it off in the elevator. (He probably had.) Bill was _pink_ with anger. He was balling up his old-boxing-fists, heaving his shoulders up and down. His whole face was a storm. 

Hardy rubbed the heel of his hand against his thickening cock. His belly gave a funny little twist of shock-tinged-lust. Being horny, and a little drunk, and gifted with the delightful sight of a pissed-off-Bill Masters was a terrible combination. 

“You made dinner?” Bill asked. No, he didn’t ask, he _demanded_. He was _outraged_ to find dinner waiting. He was God-damn furious at the implication that he be expected on time. He was working himself up into a temper tantrum that was going to take days to resolve. “What the hell are you doing?”

That was a very good question. Hardy had ideas about how he should get up, how the plates would need cleared away and the situation discussed. They could order dinner in, they could have a conversation about what had happened. But just then, with his left hand undoing his pants button and his right hand rubbing the length of his cock through his pants well– “You’re really fucking hot,” he said.

Bill had never looked as _confounded_ as he did just then. “I’m sorry?”

“When you’re angry,” Hardy said. He pressed his feet against the ground, lifted his hips and eased his pants down. He had to rock forward to get them over his knees, and pulled off entirely. He was bare-assed on this couch that had never been used. He ran his fingers over it again. “Want to talk about it?”

Bill said nothing. Bill stared. He twisted his face into an unspoken snarl. He turned and just _left._ He went back toward the bedroom, or the bathroom, or any room but the one he was standing in. 

Hardy would have gotten up and gone after him, but the sound of things clattering out of place was the sound of a man that just needed a moment to gather himself. He slouched lower on the couch, knees spread open, hips resting on the edge of the cushion. He scraped his nails along insides of his thighs, were the hair grew more sparsely than anywhere else on his body. He thought about how he missed the feeling of Bill’s body there.

And how funny that was. He had been a straight man (mostly, he thought) not so long ago, and here he was, wondering how it was that he’d been here for two days and he hadn’t gotten fucked yet. Not properly, not how he’d assumed he would when he got on the plane. That thought had sustained him through the trip, and the airports, and the very, very tiring layover.

The thought had kept him company while he waited for his luggage, and for _Bill_ who hadn’t shown up on time at all. It had heated the inside of Bill’s tiny car as they drove back _here_.

And it had never come to fruition.

Hardy was thinking it was going to be one of those _things_ that he was going to have train Bill into. He would have to make sure the man understood that all forms of sex were well and good, but there was only the one sort that he started to crave after six-weeks or four months or however long they were apart this time. 

Hardy wasn’t read for the kiss that landed on his chest. He hadn’t been paying attention to Bill coming back into the room. He’d missed the man stripping off his clothes but there he was, wearing nothing but his unbuttoned dress pants. He was kneeling between Hardy’s spread legs, he was pressing his arms under his back up and up so his hands were folding over Hardy’s shoulders to pull him forward and _down_. 

Bill’s hand was against the back of his neck, his fingers spreading up into Hardy’s hair and his mouth–his fucking mouth–was pressed against his throat. He was scraping his teeth across Hardy’s skin, following the sting with the sweetness of little kisses. It was a enough to distract a man from the sound of a cap being popped open. 

Hardy wrapped his arms around Bill’s shoulders, he scrapped his nails across the man’s scalp as he tipped his head so their mouths were hovering just there. He could taste the heaviness of Bill’s breath, he could see his eyelashes fluttering as the looked between them. He felt how Bill’s arm was along the inside of his thigh, how his fingers were slick and sneaky sliding past his cock to press firmly into the crack of his ass. 

“Are you taking advantage of me?” Hardy asked.

“I could ask you the same,” Bill said, his eyes flicked up to Hardy’s face and down again because he was pushing a finger _in_. His breath got tighter and his cock twitched along the underside of Hardy’s leg. He was licking his own lips, teeth clenched and bare and impatient.

Bill was always _impatient_ when he was angry. 

Hardy kissed him. It was a selfish kiss, the rush of mouths meeting, the heat of a forceful tongue. He’d been meant to be in charge of this kiss, but Bill was _mad_ and he had ideas about how Hardy was his-and-_only_-his. It was hard to argue when he was rumbling moans as the second-slick-finger pushed into him. It was hard to argue with something you didn’t mind being true.

There was a principle to defend in there somewhere.

Hardy shifted forward, moved from leaning against the couch to crouching over Bill. He tightened his arms around Bill’s body, and broke off the kiss with a hiss. “I made dinner,” he said.

“Smells delicious,” was an memorized response. Someone had trained Bill to repeat it when prompted, and they would really have to talk about that. Libby was a wonderful woman but Bill had been a fucking awful husband. He was a barbarian with a red blush right now, pulling free from Hardy’s body just so he could smear his cock with lube. “Like this?” he bothered asking. 

Hardy leaned back, elbows sinking into the couch cushions, as he pushed himself back up where he’d started. Bill followed after without having to be told a single damn thing, hooking his arms under Hardy’s legs as he moved. His dick was hot and thick when it pushed into him. 

He was simply not sober enough to assign words to feelings, or to use any sort of good sense about the situation. He was wrapped up in his own irritation, at being stood up for dinner and condescended to. He was just angry enough about everything to be _reckless_. “Fuck me,” he said.

“I am,” Bill assured him. He was an arrogant ass, smiling at him as he thrust forward to prove his words. His arms were pushing Hardy’s thighs up to his chest, he was shifting on his knees so he could drive forward with more force. Bill wasn’t moving _faster_ he was moving _harder_. He was fucking forward with a slap of skin, and a momentum that was making it hard to _breath_. But they were going to be here all night and tomorrow morning too because Bill was in a _mood_.

Hardy closed his eyes, groped for the edge of the cushions and when he found it, tightened his hands in fists so he could arch into every thrust. The shock of it stuttered Bill’s thrusts but he recovered in the next moment, he pulled one arm from under Hardy’s leg to run up his chest. The pads of his fingertips were feather-soft, his palm was broad and sure, cupped around Hardy’s throat like a collar.

Bill was all fury, and that _was_ attractive. It felt fucking _fantastic _when it was put to work like this. A smarter man would have run away screaming, maybe, but Hardy had never been the best at making life-saving decisions.

“Shit,” Bill gasped. He was getting sloppy, losing his rhythm. His thrusts were short, and fast, and his dick was throbbing in Hardy. His mouth was a red slash across his face, and he shuddered to a stop a strangled, “sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

Hardy snorted, “suck my cock,” he said. There were other things to say, about how it didn’t matter who came first. But you couldn’t say things like that to Bill. he was too _polite_ to tolerate orgasming first. That was fine, it offended it his pride and he worked harder to make it up to you after. 

Hardy was very happy to lay there and be worshiped. He was content to stroke his hands through Bill’s unruly hair, to have his cock sucked so exquisitely. He rested one of his legs across Bill’s shoulder, propped the other open to the side. “Put your fingers in me,” he said.

Bill slid back into him, using fresh lube and his own cum to ease the way. He was a sex-doctor with a perfectionism fetish, and he had memorized every way to make Hardy lose his fucking mind there was. He knew how to use his tongue, and his fingers and–

“Oh,” Hardy said as his stomach started shivering, as the orgasm started over taking him, as it pulsed and spread, and grew with every greedy slurp of Bill’s mouth and the sweet-torture of the fingers spreading him home. “_Christ_,” he gasped when it lasted a breath too long and he had to push the man off. 

“I could make you cum again,” Bill said as soon as his mouth was free. He had every intention to get back to proving that point, but Hardy pushed him back again.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said. He was a little drunk, after all, and he might not remember all the little details. If he was going to be an experiment, he wanted to be a lucid one. 

Bill pouted and Hardy caught his breath. When the air was cool again, and they were shifting around to find more comfortable places to be, Bill said: “it does smell like dinner would have tasted very nice.”

“I bet it did,” Hardy said.

“You should have eaten,” Bill said, “something came up with work and–” He seemed to realize that whatever had come up wasn’t more important than what he could have been doing here. “I won’t go in tomorrow,” he promised, “I won’t even turn on my phone.”

Hardy rolled his eyes at that, slid off the couch so he was sitting on the floor next to Bill. “Just don’t promise what you can’t do.”

“I won’t turn on my phone,” he said again. “I’ve been researching multiple male orgasms. And prostate orgasms. I think you’d be an excellent research subject.” He smiled before he kissed Hardy very gently. 


	11. "you're more than a one night stand" | R

“I’m a little out of my depth,” Bill admitted. He was in the door from the bedroom, looking sleep-mussed and out of just a little out of place. There were pink lines on his cheek from Hardy’s pillows and a blurriness to his eyes as he squinted at the sun slanting in through the windows. “I’m not certain about the protocol.”

Only a doctor–no, only an uptight sex researcher would use words like _protocol_ when he was less than ten minutes from waking up. 

Hardy was leaning back against the cabinets, trying to read a newspaper he hadn’t been able to concentrate on. No, he was holding the paper and a cup of tea, and he hadn’t done anything with either. He had been remembering the night before: how it had felt to fall into the bed. How he’d caught his fingernail on the button of his pants and rolled it back. It hadn’t hurt then, and it barely hurt now, but it was _something_. It was something that had _changed._

It felt right that something had changed. You couldn’t wrap your arms and legs around a man for the first time and emerge from the ordeal with nothing to show for it. His skin remembered how the sheets had felt bunched up under his back, and how Bill’s touch was always reverent and _heavy_. It remembered what it had felt like to be held in place, to be kissed and stroked, and _fucked. _

There was a muscle in the back of his left thigh that remembered _vividly_ about the fucking, especially. It seemed to be protesting the very idea of a repeat. It was a good hurt, a remembering hurt.

“Protocol for what?” Hardy asked.

Bill was wearing his blue-striped boxers and a white undershirt. Those were clothes that Hardy had stripped off him yesterday. They’d been laughing when he did it, exchanging anecdotes about undressing past lovers and how it was just simpler to let them undress themselves. Things always got tangled on arms and ankles and wrapped around wrists. But Bill’s undershirt was buttersoft and stretched-thin. It was made to be pulled off in a hurry. Hardy remembered that, remembered pressing his hands to Bill’s chest, and remembered how the man had gasped at the touch.

He remembered the man’s cock. Remembered how it had been flushed, and damp and _hard_. Bill was shameless in a way that Hardy couldn’t qualify with words. He was proud as peacock, staring at his own cock as Hardy had closed his hand around it. The first touch was daunting, and he remembered how he’d been holding his breath. Part of Hardy thought he couldn’t do it, and he had nothing but a lifetime of proof behind him. Bill’s smile was sin, his hand around Hardy’s was helpful and steady. 

“How to exit a one-night stand with dignity,” Bill said. “I don’t have any experience in the area.”

Hardy dropped the paper on the counter and dumped the tea in the sink. He had intended to move but his feet hadn’t cooperated. His whole body hadn’t done more than twist one way and the other. His hands were holding the counter top behind him. Here he was, remembering and there Bill was, already forgetting. 

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Bill said. 

“Don’t worry,” Hardy said. 

“I have upset you.”

Hardy shoved himself away from the counter. His thigh gave a twinge of pain and he ignored it as he strode across the room. He had intentions to go out the front door because the inside of his tiny house wasn’t big enough to let him catch his breath. He said, “I think you just put on your clothes and leave.”

Bill’s hand caught his elbow as Hardy’s hand grabbed the door knob. There they were, Hardy looking over his shoulder and Bill stepping forward to slap a hand against the door. The man had asked for an out not even a full minute ago, but he was the one holding the door closed. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m not very good at this.”

“Let go of my arm.”

Bill let him go instantly, but his hand hovered. “I didn’t mean to imply that this was– I don’t want it to be just one night. I– You weren’t in bed when I woke up, I wasn’t sure how you felt. It can be overwhelming.” 

And now Doctor William Masters was going to educate him about his own sexual crisis. Hardy let go of the door knob to take hold of Bill’s face with both hands. No amount of _talking_ would get Bill to stop once he got going, so he pulled the man forward and kissed him. He used his tongue to still Bill’s nonsense words. 

Bill returned the touch gratefully, his hands dropped to rest on Hardy’s waist. He opened his mouth and let Hardy’s tongue slip in, and he _hummed_ in appreciation. And when they parted, he smiled, “not just one night then?”

Hardy snorted, “you’re not a one night stand, Bill. I was hungry that’s why I got up.” 

“Oh, _good_.” Bill pulled him forward by the waist. “Come back to bed.”


	12. "I'm waiting" | Nc-17/E

“I’m waiting.”

Bill _was_ waiting. He had been, because the sight of him leaning against the pillows was too delicious to rush. A man had to take the time to _savor_ things. (Bill would have known that if he’d spent the past year in a state of almost dying the way Hardy had.) There were plenty of details to savor here:

The complete stretch of Bill’s body, utterly and shamelessly naked as it was. How the lamplight struck the fine sheen of sweat on his skin and made it seem like it glowed. It hugged the curves of his shoulders; it highlighted the tense of muscle in his upper arm. It pooled in the hollow of his chest, where the little hairs had been ruffled up by Hardy’s fingers. They were standing to attention now, catching the light and drawing attention to the pink, aroused peaks of his nipples. 

Bill was a peacock when he was the one doing the staring. Bill liked to assess his conquests with a connoisseur’s eye. That was fine, the man had seen enough bodies in every state of undress to have the knowledge required to judge. But it was the _way_ he stood when stared, the way he got off just by knowing he was going to put his hands all over what he was looking at–that look was like fire.

But Bill on his back, on a bed, being _looked at_ was another beast entirely. His hand was resting on his stomach, half way to covering his half-hard cock. He was self-conscious on the bed by himself, casting suspicious glances down at the generous curves of his body. 

No, there was no arguing that Bill wasn’t perfectly soft anywhere you wanted to touch him. He pressed pink marks where his belly rolled. His navel was a little cavern. His cock was resting uphill, wilting under the attention (but that could be fixed). 

“Come _on_,” Bill said again. It was almost a whine, not at all like the man who liked to pin your hands to the mattress as he pounded you hard in the ass. Not at all like the sort that smiled at you across a table full of business acquaintances like he was too busy thinking about your naked body to bother listening to the small talk. 

“One more minute,” Hardy said. He did move, but not how Bill wanted. He did rush forward on hands and knees to follow through on the promises he’d made. No, he slid one knee onto the bed leaning forward to get his hand on Bill’s ankle. 

He ran his thumb across the rise of his calf, let his palm follow along. As he moved he pushed the leg up, and out to the side. He pinned it down to the bed so he could press a kiss against the warm-soft inside of Bill’s thigh. Hardy had developed a taste of this man’s legs. Oh, he’d lost what felt like hours of his life watching every fluid motion of his thighs. He’d been lost in thought, at public functions, just watching Bill move through a crowd. His body always remembered what Bill’s body felt like against his. It remembered the weight of those thighs, and power of them as Bill fucked him without mercy.

And here they were, with Hardy’s teeth digging pink-pressure-marks into Bill’s quivering thighs. Here _he_ was, crawling his way up to rest between those thighs. He knew almost everything there was to know about being delightfully and gratefully smothered by Bill’s body but he knew _nothing_ about this.

“You don’t have to pretend,” Bill said. He had one hand cupped around Hardy’s ribs and the other trying to pull the hand off his knee. 

“I don’t pretend,” Hardy said. He didn’t kiss his worried mouth because Bill wouldn’t have let him even if he wanted. He kissed his neck down and down to the ridge of his collarbone and he scraped his teeth across it. 

Bill’s body was soft, but it moved like a symphony beneath him. His legs pulled up at his back arched and he might as well shouted, _go on and get it over with, go on and take me if you’re going to_. Bill didn’t say anything of that, he tipped his head back and he scratched his fingers through Hardy’s hair. He whispered, “Alec,” like he was afraid to remind them both.

“Soon,” Hardy promised. He leaned his weight to his left elbow, so he could shift his body to the side. It was him, and Bill, both staring down Bill’s body as Hardy’s hand ran up the length of Bill’s thigh. It was his hand and the warm heat of Bill’s body, the softness of his skin where it was rarely touched. “I think you’re perfect,” he said.

“I’m hardly perfect,” Bill objected.

“I love how you sound when I do this,” and his fingers found the trail of slickness he’d already left behind. They retraced the path already taken, from the crease of Bill’s hip to his wet-and-worked open asshole. 

Bill _did_ make a noise when Hardy’s fingers pushed into him. It was exactly the same noise he always made: a shuddery, fluttery little gasp of breath. The start of a moan that never quite became a sound, and the quick-quick motion of his hand flying up to his mouth. 

Hardy watched Bill’s face as he worked his fingers in little-by-little, pulling out and pushing in to go a little deeper each time. He said, “tell me how it feels.” 

You couldn’t just _leave_ Bill alone, you couldn’t just let him start thinking. Bill Masters was a master of making the worst of things. You had to remind him, again and again, that things were meant to be good. That things _could_ be good. Hell if Hardy could do it for himself, but he could do it _here_.

“You know how it feels,” Bill said.

“I know how it feels for me,” Hardy conceded. “Tell me how it feels or I’ll stop.” He slid down, kissed here-and-there down Bill’s belly just to feel how erratic his breathing already was. 

Bill’s hand was heavy, and clutching at his arm, trying to make sense of the command and what Hardy intended to do. “That’s not fair,” he said.

“I think it is,” Hardy said. He pressed his fingers in fully and went still, his mouth was breathing damp-hot-breath right across the base of Bill’s dick. 

“Ok,” Bill said. He scraped his hair away from his face, “ok–you feel–” He growled in annoyance to say: “This is ridiculous,” but then immediately after, “fine, fine–you feel, you feel _good_.” 

It was enough of a start for Hardy. He crooked his fingers to skate lately across Bill’s prostate as he licked the length of Bill’s cock from base to tip. He smiled at the way it made him jump, at how his voice got high.

“It’s _intense_, it just feels very _intense_ when you do it–oh hell, and your tongue is wet and rough, and I can feel how fast you’re breathing. When you move like that, when your _fingers_ pull out I feel like I’m losing something and I want to clench–oh and,” Bill groaned there, “your mouth, Alec _please_, the inside of your mouth is _hot_ and smooth. _Fuck_.” 

Bill was _helpful_ at least, circling his fist around his cock to lift it away from his belly, to make it easier for Hardy to close his mouth around it. His hips were eager, lifting up, pushing in deeper as his narration ran to a standstill. Bill tried to thrust up again but Hardy lifted away, licked his own mouth and glanced up at his lover. 

“Fine,” Bill said, “_fine_.” He glanced at his damp and leaking cock in exactly the same way he always told Hardy what to do. “Your fingers are–your fingers are _buried_,” he spat the word like would have preferred to say anything but it, “all the way in–in _me_. I can feel how thick they are at the knuckle, I can feel your hand pushing against me, and it feels–it’s… It feels like too much, I can’t _think, _why are you making me do this?”

Hardy didn’t have an answer. Bill hardly had answers for all the things he’d done to Hardy. He didn’t even think he needed them. There was arrogance in that assumption, and Hardy was only willing to forgive it because there was skill to back it up. This wasn’t about dominance, or pride. He hummed around Bill’s cock, and the man moaned again.

“Please,” Bill said, “please, I’m ready now, please.” He hooked his arms under Hardy’s to haul him upward. 

“I was busy,” Hardy said when his only option was catch himself on his hands or fall on Bill with his full weight. He might have said more but Bill’s legs were spread wide beneath him, his hand was curling around Hardy’s cock like he could hurry them both along with enough determination. “Let me do it,” he said. 

Hardy dug the bottle of lube out from between the rumpled covers. He used it with extreme generosity, slicking up his own cock until he wasn’t even certain he could get it in. That was fine, if it didn’t happen. He would have been content just to listen to Bill ramble his way to an orgasm.

Bill was bracing himself against the bed, one arm over his head and the other gripping at the sheets beneath him. His thighs were spread across Hardy’s bent legs. His eyes flicked up from Hardy’s wet dick to his face, and his expression softened. “I like how you feel, I like how slowly you push into me. I know you do it so I can get used to it–but it feels,” he breath caught there. 

Hardy was rocking his hips, following the directions he was being given, pushing in by fractions of degrees, feeling Bill open up around him in slow motion. The inside of his body was hot as hell, and it gripped him so tightly.

“It feels, oh fuck, I don’t know what it feels like. I’m stretched, I’m _full_, and it feels _good_. It feels _good_.” 

It felt fucking fantastic. Hardy’s hands were loosely curled around Bill’s thighs, he thrust with shallow little rocks of his hips, drawing out and sliding in again. His thumbs were slipping on sweat and slick lube as they rubbed up and down again. There was no hope of _lasting_ when they’d been working up to this for an hour. But he could enjoy it, he could memorize how Bill looked when he was squirming on the bed. How his neck flushed pink, how he tried so hard not to grab his own cock. Memorize all those sounds he made, and how he looked right at Hardy, right at his face when he was on the verge of cumming. 

“Angle up,” Bill said, “thrust harder, pull out more and thrust a little harder.” 

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” he said. Neither one of them believed that for a second, certainly not when Hardy was already shifting on his knees, and Bill was pulling his legs up higher. No as Hardy pulled out farther than he had before and snapped his hips forward. They slapped together and Bill _groaned_. “Again?” Hardy asked.

“Just the same,” Bill agreed. He was stroking his cock, holding one of his legs up with the other hand. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, he couldn’t stop himself from making noises. All the noises–little grunts, and groans, and moans and sharp sounds of surprise and _approval_ when Hardy’s hips snapped forward to smack against his. “You’re so good,” he was babbling between sounds, “you’re so good.”

On and on it went, until Hardy was ragged and ready, and Bill’s legs were shaking. His grip was slipping and his dick was spent and sticky. Hardy shifted forward, hands to the bed and hips tucked in tight to Bill’s. He gave up on the pretense of rhythm, and finesse. His thrust were shameless, and quick, and selfish. Bill’s hands were on his back, stroking the length of his spine as he murmured sweetly, encouraging things into his hair. 

“You’re perfect,” Bill said when the orgasm finally hit. “You’re absolutely perfect.”


	13. "If I have to stop what I'm doing you won't be able to walk for a week." | PG

The only thing they had been drinking was ice water from tall glasses. It wasn’t alcohol that made the day feel light, and their bodies feel careless. There was an unspoken promise they’d woken up with, a sort of growing warmth set deep in their bodies. They’d spent the whole of the day directionless, wandering from one half-completed task to the next.

Dinner had been made almost by accident. Bill was a show-off in any circumstances, and Hardy was happy to lean against the counter and watch him host his own cooking show. 

The windows were open to the cool breeze, the sunlight was sweet and lazy, and Bill had hooked an arm around Hardy’s back and kissed him when they were meant to be cleaning up dishes. That heat that had been blooming since they woke up was reaching a fever point, very soon it would get frantic. Alec liked it best when it was unhurried, when he could lean into it, and let it swell like the tide.

Bill pulled him closer and Hardy’s hand grabbed for a handhold like an instinct. His elbow hit a glass on the counter behind him and the glass hit the floor with great wet shattering sound. The water was bitterly cold, and sudden, and soaking up into his socks. 

“Oi,” he shouted at it. His foot lifted by reflex, and Bill tried to catch him when he jumped but it only served to knock him sideways into the puddle. Hardy’s foot landed hard in the widening puddle of ice water and broken glass. He felt the glass cutting into his foot before he felt the pain of it, he saw the bright blossom of blood like red-red strings in the spreading water. 

“Fuck,” Bill gasped. His hands were still holding onto Hardy’s arms as if he could do anything helpful at all about it. “Stop moving.”

“I’m standing on glass,” Hardy snapped back.

Bill sighed at him, and his lack of shoes, and then leaned forward to push the rest of the dishes off the counter and into the sink. “Get up here,” he said, “I’ll clean it up. Don’t take your sock off.”

“There’s _glass_,” Hardy snapped, “in my _foot_.”

Bill didn’t bother to explain his reasoning, he had already left to retrieve his bag out of the bedroom. Hardy pulled his foot up to rest it across his thigh and look at the stomach-turning sight of glass sticking out of foot. The blood was dripping off the side of his sick, landing in the water beneath him. 

Bill was back before Hardy could disobey him. He’d fetched the broom on his way back and he worked with quick, annoyed efficiency, sweeping the biggest pieces of glass up and into the dustpan. He dumped it, water and all, into the trashcan. Hardy pulled a towel out of the drawer and dropped it over the remains of the puddle. 

“Can I take my sock off now?” he said. 

Bill’s answer was a sideways glare as he picked his bag up off the other counter and pulled it open. He retrieved a zipper bag full of little medical tools and another with bandages. When he was properly prepared, he said, “if you want.”

Hardy eased the sock off, and the larger pieces of glass went with it, falling to the ground with new, fresh fat drops of blood. The bottom of his foot was a massacre and Bill’s expression was blank and flat. “It doesn’t hurt much,” Hardy said.

Rather than answer, Bill picked up the other glass of ice water and poured it over his foot. It washed away the blood well enough to see where the smaller shards were stuck in. Bill sighed and said, “I need a chair.” There was blood on his hands, and seeping into his pant leg. 

“Don’t you need gloves?” Hardy asked. He wasn’t an expert on medicine but he’d been in enough hospitals to know that Doctors generally wore gloves.

“No point now,” Bill said. He didn’t even see a point in not wiping his hands on the sides of his pants. He brought a dining room chair from the other room so he could sit in it with Hardy’s foot propped up on his thigh. 

“Is it bad?” Hardy asked.

“It’s not good,” Bill had said five minutes ago. He said _nothing _while he worked to pull the glass out. It seemed like it wouldn’t have taken so long, but there they were, Hardy leaning back against the cabinet and Bill easing little shards of glass out. Every time he got one loose he ran his thumb across the wound and moved to the next. 

“Nearly done?” Hardy asked. There couldn’t _possibly_ be that much glass in his foot, but Bill was still frowning and not talking. It was starting to hurt, to sit on the counter, and to have his foot gripped. The amount of blood that had soaked into Bill’s pant leg was utterly ridiculous. He’d seen less at real crime scenes. 

Bill didn’t answer. 

Out in the other room, on the dining table, Hardy’s phone started to ring. He leaned sideways, like he could get his head out of the kitchen if he tried hard enough. As soon as he moved, Bill’s head snapped up to look at him.

“Don’t move,” he said as if he had said _anything _at all since he started. “You can call them back.”

“It could be important,” Hardy said. At least it could be an excuse to get off this counter.

“_This_ is important,” Bill countered. He set his tweezers on a little gauze pad he’d put on the counter. “Does it feel like there’s anymore glass in there?”

“I don’t think so.” Hardy couldn’t have known Bill was going to start pressing his thumbs into the wounds, feeling testing them for any more debris with utter ruthlessness. “That hurts!” he shouted at him.

“Don’t wiggle,” Bill said.

Hardy wasn’t wiggling, he was attempting to escape. He would have slid off the counter entirely except that Bill and the chair had taken up almost all of the space in the kitchen. His knee was pushed up so high it was almost kissing his chest and he just wasn’t flexible enough to get free. 

The phone started ringing again. “They’re calling back,” he said. He couldn’t get free the obvious way, but he slid sideways across the counter, along the lip of the sink, and closer to the door. 

Bill’s fist tightened around his ankle when his escape seemed almost likely. He stopped pushing against the bottom of Hardy’s foot and frowned at him. “Stop moving.”

“I need to get to my phone,” Hardy snapped back. 

“If I have to stop what I’m doing…” Bill started to say.

Out in the other room, the sound of the front door opening to admit an uninvited guest was as loud as the damn phone had been. Hardy leaned forward to see the intruder and Bill’s voice got lower, and _meaner_.

“…You won’t be able to walk for week,” he finished.

There was Ellie fucking Miller, looking as _pleased_ as _punch_, with her phone hanging loosely in her fist. She was wearing that God-awful jacket, with her hair swept into chaos by the wind. But her smile was so large, and her voice so cheerful, that you’d never guessed she had just caught him playing hooky from work with his American boyfriend. “Well, that’s hardly a surprise is it?”

Bill didn’t even have the good grace to look guilty. He was too busy unscrewing the cap of some awful antiseptic. (All doctors were at least a little bit sadistic, that’s what Hardy thought.) 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Hardy said.

Miller’s smile called him a liar. “Yes, you do. Well, I guess I can report back you were ill or injured. Some of the guys at the station thought they’d seen Bill, there’s a bet going around you were just faking.”

“Stop wiggling,” said the sadist that was making the bottom of Hardy’s foot burn like it was on fire.

“That doesn’t look good,” Miller said, “is he going to make it?”

“Not if he doesn’t stop wiggling,” Bill said again.

Miller’s grin just got sharper; she winked at Hardy in a way that couldn’t be misconstrued as professional. And rather than express any concern about his well-being, she motioned back toward the door. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to get back to it.”

“Miller,” he said (at _last_).

“I know, I _know_,” she said without turning back around, “don’t tell anyone anything I saw. Don’t worry, boss, everyone already knows.” And she didn’t bother to explain her statement before she was slipping back out the front door.

Hardy looked down at Bill who couldn’t have managed to look innocent in that moment if his (sex) life had depended on it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What?” Bill asked.

“Everyone already _knows_?”

Bill had a tube of antibiotic ointment in one hand and a look of utter disbelief on his face. There was an open container of cotton swabs on the counter and a whole bag of bandages waiting to be applied. But Bill said, “do I really need to explain it to you?”

Hardy twisted around so he could look out the window over the sink and frowned at Miller’s retreating back. He didn’t say _no_ but his lack of an answer was as good as giving the obvious one. “Aren’t you almost done yet?”

“Very close now,” Bill assured him.


	14. "you want your item back?  Make me." | R

Time for the pair of them, only came in severely limited quantities. They weren’t a pair of typical lovers, arguing about how neither of them wanted to be the one to drive to the other person’s house. Time together meant hours (and sometimes days) of travel and time lost at work. It meant planning, and plane delays, and lost luggage.

Time was sacred. Time shouldn’t be squandered on trivial things, or stolen by noisy cell-phones. 

Hardy had taken two weeks off work and he’d put up with all the winks and the smirks and the _commentary_ that had come with it. He’d made it through a thousand variations of ‘oh so Bill’s coming in then?’ He’d tolerated every possible iteration of winking that humanity could imagine.

Hardy had even survived Miller with her cheeks as pinked as apple skins, sliding an indiscreet gift back across his desk at him. He’d managed not to accuse her of sexual harassment (although he had grounds, surely) as he stared back at her. They both knew that he wasn’t going to open the package while she was there, or at work, or possibly ever. Miller hadn’t said a word about what was surely contained within, she had just said: “Have a nice time with Bill.”

Hardy had made it through all that, and he’d even dusted and vacuumed more diligently than usual. And there he sat, alone in a chair, staring at Bill fucking Masters standing on the front step shouting into his phone. 

It had been going on for hours. Every time it seemed like the calls would stop, another one came. And texts, and e-mails. Bill had apologized at first, with some kind of sincerity. ‘_I’m very sorry I have to take this.’ _But the apologies had ceased.

Hardy didn’t have many advantages over Bill. While they were evenly matched in most things, Bill was heavier and ever so slightly stronger. Hardy was taller and he was significantly more agile. He was also faster on his feet, and quiet. (Bill walked a bit like a heard of medium sized elephants on parade.) 

Bill was unprepared to have his phone pulled out of his hand. “Hey!” 

Hardy spared a half-second to make sure the phone disconnected before he dashed backward out of the doorway and into the bedroom. He hadn’t had a plan as far as what he was going to do after he took the phone. (Well he had, his first plan had involved throwing it directly into the water, and he’d vetoed that plan as too drastic.) 

“Give it back!” Bill shouted.

“Make me!” 

“That was a work call!” Bill wasn’t fast but he didn’t have to be when Hardy was stupid enough to put himself in a corner. All Bill needed was a place to plant his feet and the opportunity to get his hands on you. His shoulders were bristling up with annoyance.

“They’ll manage it.”

Bill didn’t like to be told what to do. He reached for the phone and Hardy jerked his hand back and up, over his head. It was a stupid move, it would hardly have taken any effort at all for Bill to drag his arm down. But the man stared at him, narrow eyes and frowning face. He _was_ angry, but he also seemed to realize that he was _wrong_. “Make you,” he repeated.

Hardy’s body had conflicting feelings about that tone of voice. His spine was tingling at the sound of a threat. His gut was singing to run, and to stand still all at once. But his cock–well his cock always seemed to remember that when Bill’s voice sounded like the threat of violence, the sex was _always _spectacular. 

Bill didn’t need encouragement to continue. He pulled his t-shirt off over his head and dropped it to the side. “How do you _prefer_ I make you return my phone to me?” (That was a rhetorical question. Bill did not usually take suggestions when he was in a mood.) 

As far as Hardy was concerned there had been no reason to get dressed that morning; he hadn’t managed to put on more than a pair of loose sweatpants and an old t-shirt himself. Bill’s fingers pinched the very end of the drawstring and drew it out slow-and-long until the knot untied itself. He didn’t look away from Hardy’s face as the waistband of the sweats loosened and slipped lower. His fingers were following it down, his mouth was making a mockery of shock when his palms flattened against Hardy’s bare skin. 

The corner was just behind them, with just enough clear space that when Bill’s fingers dug into the meat of Hardy’s ass and lifted him off the ground his shoulders hit the wall without knocking anything off. Hardy dropped the phone and Bill didn’t even seem to _care_. No, he was too busy stepping into the space between Hardy’s bare thighs, too busy inviting himself to lick a stripe from the base of Hardy’s throat to just under his jaw. 

“Are you feeling ignored, Alec?” Bill asked. The words were whispers right against his ear, punctuated by the roll of Bill’s hips. “I haven’t forgotten about you. I remember _every_ single _promise _I made you. Which one should we start with?” He interrupted his words with noisy little kisses, and hot little nips against Hardy’s throat. His hands were kneading at his ass. 

“I think you’re already doing one of them,” Hardy said. He laid his arms over Bill’s shoulders, scratched his fingers through the man’s perfectly well-kept hair. He liked ruffling it up, he liked making Bill look unruly. 

“Am I?” Bill asked. He kissed Hardy with refreshing obscenity. They were going to have brilliant, loud, messy sex. That’s what it meant when Bill kissed him like that. They were going to use one another and it was going to feel _fantastic._

When the sweat cooled, and calm returned, they’d do it again with tenderness. Bill would kiss him so sweetly it made you feel like there was nothing else in the world. They would make _love_ the second time around, taking their time about it.

Just not this time. This time, Bill loosened his grip on Hardy and let his feet fall back to the floor. His voice was raw, almost hoarse, and it sounded exactly like a threat when he said, “turn around, bend over.”


	15. "take your clothes off" | E

At times, love required vulnerability. 

Bill Masters was not a man for whom allowing vulnerability came easy. He was made of bad memories and bad choices in equal measure. He’d had the taste of blood in his mouth since he was a _child_ and no amount of trying had ever successfully washed it out again. He’d kept his skin as thick as armor plating; he’d kept his lovers as distant as he could manage. Bill had _survived_ because he had never shown _weakness_.

Alec wasn’t asking him for weakness. Alec was asking for trust. 

“Are you,” Bill asked quietly. His tie was twisted up between his two fists, being helplessly pulled out of shape by the nervous motion of his fingers, “taking your clothes off too?”

No. Alec didn’t even need to shake his head; he was sitting in the arm chair across the room, legs crossed at the knee and hands resting in his lap. He was only _watching_. 

Bill didn’t have to do it. It was stupid not to, he’d taken his clothes off with this man enough times that it was stupid that he hadn’t already started doing what he was asked. But it was _different_ to take your clothes off _with_ someone than it was to take them off _for_ someone. Alec wasn’t stripping with him; he wasn’t even standing. He wasn’t _participating; _he was _observing_.

The ugly lick of heat down Bill’s spine was matched only by the indecision that made his movements stutter. He held his arm out to the side and let the tie fall off his fingers. He considered how he wanted to start, and how he wanted to proceed. Bill had a body that had carried him this far in life; it had been sturdy and strong when he’d needed it to be but it wasn’t attractive in the traditional way. He wasn’t defined by muscles. He wasn’t lean. He was round and soft. 

Alec didn’t seem to mind; his hands never touched Bill with anything but desire. He gasped his dirty compliments with Bill’s body over his. He laid on him in the aftermath with a lazy, hazy smile.

That was different.

That wasn’t the slow release of the little buttons hold his shirt in place. It wasn’t the sweat-damp drag of his shirt tails being pulled out of the waistband of his pants. It wasn’t standing here, in front of his fully-dressed lover, trying to work out if it would be better to step out of his pants or pull off his undershirt next. 

“Bill,” Alec said as he got to his feet. His voice was soft, and warm, and _unforgiving_ all at once. He grabbed Bill by the wrist and pulled him forward, around the bed and to the bathroom with it’s wide, tall, unforgiving mirror. He spun Bill around, stood him so he had to look at his unimpressive body cased in unimpressive clothes. 

“What are you trying to do?” Bill asked.

Alec was close behind him, still dressed in wrinkled blue shirt. His hands were curled into the hem of Bill’s shirt, his mouth was pressing wet kisses against Bill’s neck. When he spoke, his voice was low and reassuring, saying: “You don’t understand how much I like your body.” 

No, he didn’t. Bill didn’t fight when Alec pulled his undershirt up and over his head. He didn’t like standing there, naked to the skin, looking at himself in the mirror. He didn’t like how uncertain his face looked. He didn’t like how well his body hid Alec’s behind him. 

But Alec’s hands slid down his chest, straight down to the button of his pants. “Keep your eyes on the mirror,” he said, “put your hands on the counter.”

“This really isn’t–” Bill started.

“You need to see it how I see it,” Alec said. He had the button of Bill’s pants worked open; the zipper was easing open tooth-by-tooth. Alec was pressed against his back, hips tucked in tight so he could rub his thickening cock against Bill’s ass. He closed his teeth around Bill’s ear, staring at him from the mirror, waiting to be obeyed.

“The condoms and the lube are in the other room still,” Bill said. But he pressed his palms against the counter top like he was told. His reward was Alec’s hand slipping back up to turn his head, and the sideways press of a mouth against his. It was a hum of approval, and a hand pushed into his pants to cup around his dick through his boxes. 

“I’ll be right back, don’t move.”

Bill wasn’t sure he wanted to stay; wasn’t sure what he was supposed to see in the mirror. It was just him, just his face with his slow-graying hair. Just his face the same as it had ever been. Just his soft chest and his growing belly made of stretched pale skin and sparse patches of hair. 

Alec came back in a matter of seconds, dropping their bag of supplies on the counter top as he stepped behind him again. He’d stripped off his blue shirt but he’d left the white undershirt. It didn’t matter because you could hardly see more of him than the length of his wiry arms around Bill’s body and the darkness of his hair as he pressed kisses against Bill’s round shoulders. 

Bill’s pants fell with the lightest of touches; he stepped out of where they pooled around his feet and kicked them forward out of the way. His dick shared none of the confusion brewing up in his head. No, he’d been aroused since Alec had said _take your clothes off_ and now his dick was full and damp, pulling his boxers out of shape. 

Alec was pressed against his back again, the soft cotton of his shirt hiding the rough scratch of his chest hair against Bill’s skin. The button and zipper of his pants pressed against Bill’s hip with almost enough pressure to distract him from the hard length of his Alec’s cock grinding against him. Bill would have expected to have his boxers peeled down, would have thought–

Oh hell, who knew what he would have thought, and what did it matter. Alec’s hands were sliding down his thighs, his fingertips digging into the generous wealth of his thighs starting just above his knees. “I love these legs,” he whispered, “I can’t stand those shorts you wear to the gym. I _hate_ them when you walk out of the house. Every time I see them, I think how I should have dug my teeth into your pretty thighs. You wouldn’t wear them then, would you? You wouldn’t wear them if everyone knew that I’d gotten my mouth on you–”

“_Christ_,” Bill breathed. His breath was getting rougher, his neck was blushing up pink as the dirty words shivered from his ears to his cock. His fingertips were pressed so hard against the countertop they’d started curving into fists. 

“Keep your eyes open,” Alec said.

His hands slid into the loose legs of Bill’s boxers, his fingertips dug into the soft, warm flesh of the inside of his thighs and he _pulled _them apart. Bill grit his teeth to keep from embarrassing himself with _moans_. He was being arranged, legs spread and chest tipped forward. Alec was making it easier to _fuck _him.

Bill was looking at himself in the mirror, seeing how slack and stupid with lust his face was getting. How pink his mouth got when his breath was heavy like that. His eyes could barely stay fully open. His arms were tight with muscle because he was _waiting._

_“_I like your cock too,” Alec said over his shoulder. He was interrupting his words with slow kisses across Bill’s neck and shoulder. His hands were unhurried, folding the waist band of Bill’s boxers down until his dick was freed. He was hard, and wet at the tip. Alec’s hand slid from base to tip and down again. His long-long fingers closed around Bill with a gentle squeeze. “It feels so _good_ when you fuck me with it. Your body feels good between my thighs, and your cock fills me up until it’s all I can feel. I _like_ how you feel and I _love _how you fuck.”

“_Alec_,” Bill gasped. His boxers slid lower, the elastic waistband stretched over his ass as it went lower, and it stuck around his thighs. He saw Alec’s eyes close in the mirror, felt his mouth pressed against Bill’s shoulder, how he grit his bare teeth because he was rocking his hips into Bills ass with nothing between them but his old-thin work pants. “I like how you feel too, Alec, _please_.”

It must have been the right thing to say because Alec’s eyes opened again; he leaned forward to grab the bag and pulled it across the counter so it was resting between Bill’s hands. “Keep watching,” Alec said. He slicked the fingers of one hand, and braced himself with the other against the edge of the counter. 

Bill leaned forward farther, thought he looked reckless and _shameless _in the mirror. But it was nothing compared to the way Alec looked, staring down his back to where his fingers were rubbing slick and teasing at Bill’s hole. Alec was holding his breath, teeth on his lips, looking like he wasn’t going to make it through this alive. Oh, and when the first finger pushed in, he let out a breath that made his shoulders move. 

Alec said, “_fuck_,” like he couldn’t contain it.

“Tell me,” Bill gasped. His tongue ran across his dry lips and he was doing his best to keep looking forward when his body wanted to collapse forward. He didn’t do this _often_; Alec rarely asked. It was _too _much to be taken like this, to feel the stretch of his body opening to Alec’s. 

“You’re so tight at the start,” Alec said, “I never think I can fit, but you make these noises. You _moan_,” and Bill _was _moaning with nothing but a finger in him, “and you arch your back and you push into my hand. Oh, _Bill_, you have no idea what it does to me, watching you moaning like this. Feeling,” and Alec pulled his hand back so he could press a second finger in, “how eager you are to take me. Do you feel that?” 

Bill could feel everything, the stretch of his body clenched around the slick fingers. The way Alec’s touch stroked him from the inside out. And the terrible, urgent _need_ for that touch to go deeper, and to stretch him open _more_. It was intense, and _encompassing_, and that’s why Bill never did it. And when he did, he certainly didn’t watch himself in the mirror.

He never had to see how wide his mouth got when he moaned, or how sweat beaded on his neck and face. He didn’t have to watch his eyes get narrow, or his body rock back into the touch.

This is what Alec saw.

“Put your cock in me,” Bill said.

Alec growled a noise that couldn’t be mistaken for a word. His hand pulled free. He was hurried, all motion and impatience, finally pushing his own pants down and pulling a condom free from the bag. Bill handed him the lube and shifted his grip so his fists were folded around the edge of the counter. 

“Alec,” he said when it had been _too _long. His reflection was _begging _for the cock it knew was coming. He was pushing his ass back against nothing, with his cock hard and bobbing between his spread thighs. There were spots and drops of pre-cum on the floor between his socked feet and Bill couldn’t even muster enough care to be properly ashamed. 

Alec’s hands were running down his body again, gripping his hips under the rise of his belly. The fat, slick head of his cock was pushing at his hole and Bill’s body collapsed forward so his forehead was pressed against the coolness of the counter top. Alec was _pushing _in; the feeling was _breath stealing_. Bill couldn’t stand having to watch it happen; he just wanted to _feel _it. 

“Fuck,” Alec gasped behind him. He rocked in slowly, sliding until his skinny hips were tight to Bill’s. Once Alec was fully inside him, he wrapped his arms around Bill’s chest and pulled him up again. “Watch,” he said.

Bill didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to watch Alec’s hands gripping his hips. He didn’t want to see how _desperate_ he looked, how he moaned when the head of Alec’s cock hit just right. How Bill shifted on his feet, how Alec stared down between them. 

It was enough to hear the slap of skin-on-skin. To feel the cock driving back into him, to be _overtaken_ by how _good_ it felt. Every stroke did _something_ to him, it built into a fire that spread out through his body. His own cock was _aching_, his body was _shivering_ just from the promise of an orgasm to come. 

“Oh fuck,” he had to watch himself say. He had to see his red-red lips saying those words, had to watch his tongues lick at the taste of them. “Just like that,” he saw his own face gasping. His hair was a mess, his head was shaking back and forth. His hands were slipping forward and pulling back again. He wanted, oh hell, more than anything he just wanted to drop a hand between his thighs and finish the whole ordeal. “Keep doing that,” he gasped, “keep–oh fuck, _Alec_.”

Bill had to watch himself getting fucked, had to see how his body rocked with every slap of Alec’s hips against his ass. He had to watch how it made his muscles tense and relax, how his head tipped back when it hit him just right. 

It wasn’t _fair _how badly he wanted to cum. How his dick was pulsing between his thighs.

“Alec, touch me, fuck–just touch me, please, I need, I need it, _Alec_.”

Alec’s hand was on his throat, framing his jaw with the spread of his sticky fingers. His chin was pressed to Bill’s shoulder and he jerked forward to drive his dick in and he went _still_. “You see it now?” Alec asked.

“Yes,” Bill gasped, “_please_.”

Alec’s smile was as filthy as it had ever been. It was _primal_ and _pleased_. He flexed his hips to grind his dick against Bill’s prostate as his free hand closed around Bill’s cock. It was embarrassing how _ready_ Bill was, and how _quickly_ he came. 

“You’re beautiful,” Alec said when the orgasm overtook Bill. He started thrusting properly, heightening the feeling that was making Bill’s body quiver. He lasted a matter of moments, a quick succession of selfish thrusts before he was following after, as deep as he could get and groaning his orgasm into the back of Bill’s shoulder.

They stood there a moment, in the aftermath. Bill was holding their weight with his arms braced against the counter. Alec’s arms were around his body, he was collapsed against his back. The moment cooled slowly, and Bill watched that too. He watched his breath getting even, watched Alec’s arms loosen and his mindless fingertips stroke against Bill’s skin. 

“I love you,” Alec said with his face pressed against Bill’s skin.

Bill felt scraped raw, but he lifted one hand to stroke Alec’s hair as best he could, “I love you too.”


	16. "Bill comforts Alec" | PG

Alec had become accustom to exhaustion. It had been his most constant, reliable companion for these past few years. Maybe he’d been asking for a miracle, thinking that it might ever _pass_. That he might get some semblance of normalcy back after the surgery.

But here he was, eight weeks post surgery, still doing his best to stay awake long enough to get through dinner. Still dragging his body through the motions of a life worth living. Still sitting on benches to catch his breath. Still waking up every morning and finding a skeleton with a man’s skin stretched across it.

He was supposed to be _better_ and he’d only managed stable. If the best he could hope for was _not getting worse_ he wasn’t sure what all the effort was really for.

But there was Bill, sitting next to him on the bench overlooking the beach below the cliff. There was Bill squinting into the sun reflecting off the waves as he tried to work out what he was going to say _this_ time. What else was left that he hadn’t already said. 

Patience didn’t come to them naturally; life had taught them that sometimes you had to take your time. Sometimes you had to think before you could. (And how long had it really taken to learn that.) 

“Don’t worry about it,” Alec said. He shouldn’t even have exploded. He shouldn’t have ranted. He shouldn’t have bothered just because his muscles were singing with exhaustion so early in the morning. Just because he felt like he could have taken a nap right there.

Bill turned so his elbow was over the back of the bench, so he was facing Alec. So he was looking right _at_ him, as close and as serious as he ever had. His tongue was a shy pink spot running across his pursed lips before he spoke. “You were _dying_,” he said. The words were as blunt as any doctor. “You have pushed your body past the point of endurance. And it has used every resource available to keep you alive. It may not feel different to you _yet_ because you are starting from nothing. You have no reserves left. You have nothing your body can use for energy except what you are _actively_ giving it _today_.” He sighed but it didn’t keep him from saying, “every doctor you had told you to stop. They told you to rest. They told you that it was getting worse. That you needed to take care of yourself. You didn’t listen then but you _have_ to listen now.”

Alec scoffed at that. 

Bill’s hand folded over his where he’d dropped it uselessly into his lap. His expression was agonized, like he had half the reason to be in pain. As if he could barely stand to live this life they were stuck with now. But his voice was strong and unwavering, saying: “Please. It won’t be forever.”

It wasn’t as if Alec had a choice in the matter. (Or if he had one, which he must have at some point, he hadn’t chosen the right way.) “Fine,” was the best he could say. 

“That’s the attitude to have,” Bill said with something like a smile. “Now, we’ll rest for a bit and we’ll head back to the car. If you’re feeling up to it we can go and look at the house again.”

“We’ve looked at it six times,” Alec complained. 

“Perhaps _this_ time you’ll give an opinion that isn’t just a sound.”

“I am not the one buying the damn thing. I like it fine. I liked all of them fine.”

Bill’s fingers squeezed around him because he was kind enough not to call Alec a liar while he was feeling down. “You’ll be living there, I give you permission to voice your opinion.”

“I don’t have an opinion.”

Bill snorted and said nothing. They lapsed into silence. Alec shifted so he was closer to Bill and Bill laid his arm around Alec’s shoulders. It was warm there up against Bill’s body. It was quiet and _pleasant_ and just then it wasn’t so bad how slow life had gotten. It wasn’t terrible to be forced into standing still. They had a lifetime of moments to share between them and every excuse they needed to enjoy them now.

“I love that house,” Alec said after a pause.

Bill kissed him without so much as a hint of arrogance. “I know,” he said, “I just wanted you to say it.”


	17. “I know for a fact that you can be a hell of a lot louder than that.” | E

Pillows were not intended to absorb sound, but Bill was going to give this particular hotel a five-star-rating just for the impeccably clean bathroom and the fantastically fluffy sound-absorbing pillows. Of course, he might leave off the sound bit, and probably all the details of how he came to find out just how good they were at soaking up noises.

Alec’s long-thin fingers were sliding up his back, spread across the whole width of it, they dragged from the round curve of his hips to curl over his shoulders. Alec’s body followed along, sliding along the length of his spine. One of his arms wrapped around Bill’s chest and the other pressed against the headboard. His hips were pressed as tight to Bill’s ass as they could get, and his cock shifted as he moved. 

The feeling of being spread open, of being _taken _was a breath-stealing, mind-destroying sort of feeling. Bill _knew, _because he’d devoted most of his life to researching the matter, that the prostate was a wonderful thing. He _knew, _because he’d had it described in filthy, minute details, that it could _overwhelm _you. That for some men, it was the most intense orgasm of their lives, that it ate at your thoughts, that you became almost addicted to how _good _it felt to have a cock up the ass. 

Bill just hadn’t expected himself to be one of those men.

“I know,” Alec said as he pressed kisses along the back of his shoulders, as his fingers worried at Bill’s hard nipple, “you can be a hell of a lot louder than that.” His accent was always thickest like this. It made him harder to understand, but Bill’s dick didn’t care about the individual words, it cared about the _sound _of them. 

Bill couldn’t manage to lift his body with his shivering arms, he couldn’t stop how his hips shifted back against the dick inside him. He simply couldn’t be responsible for his actions under present circumstances. “Virginia’s next door,” he gasped.

They were in the hotel because there was a conference. Maybe he would have cared about making a ruckus with strangers next door, but he didn’t think he would have. No, it only mattered because it was _Virginia_. Because it was his business partner and former lover. He wasn’t even sure which of those reasons was the one that he was biting his moans into the pillow.

Alec bit his earlobe. His hands lifted away from where he’d had them and slapped down on Bill’s hips. His voice was retreating, but the words stayed close, “_I know_.”


	18. “No, I’m supposed to making you feel good.” | E

Alec snarled a noise, like a complaint, like he had never been more impatient. His body flex, tightened up like a spring, and all that hard work Bill had put into getting him to relax was being undone. Alec had melted backward only a moment ago, fallen back along the couch with his shoulders propped up by the arm. One of his legs was pinned against the back of the couch by Bill’s body and the other had just fallen open, hanging sideways. 

All the constant fight had gone out of Alec, and he had (if only for mere seconds, it seemed) been content to be taken care of. Bill had been working hard to reach that point. He’d started with deep kisses, and slow touches. He’d peeled the layers of clothes off Alec until it was just his skin bare to the cool air. He’d kissed and licked and nipped his way from the man’s mouth to his shivering belly.

Bill had taken his time about stroking Alec’s fantastic cock to full thickness. He’d slicked his fist and Alec’s dick with lube and forced them both to take their time. And when they were both on the verge of rushing forward toward satisfaction he’d moved _on_.

Alec had surrendered with Bill’s fingers stretching him open. He’d muttered something like _oh Christ_ and he’d given up. That was what Bill had wanted from the start, he’d want there to be something to replace the soreness and aggravation that Alec had brought home with him. 

The case had been a bad one, and it had gone on too fucking long. It had started tear apart Alec’s health, hollowing out the space around his eyes and filling it in dark and tired. It had slumped his shoulders and driven him out of their bed.

Bill was selfish enough to want Alec back, and almost selfless enough to think he could make it better if he made it all about the other man. All his motions were smooth, and _slow_, and meant to build and build until they crested. 

“Fuck,” Alec said as he lifted himself up again and grabbed at Bill’s arms and shoulders to try and drag him down. “Just _come on_.”

“No,” Bill said.

“I promise I can take it,” Alec said, “I swear, just–”

“No,” Bill repeated, “I’m supposed to be making you feel good.”

Alec dropped back again, like he couldn’t support the weight of his own body. His hands were pressed to his chest, twitching downward with nervous energy. His hips flexed up, his thighs pulled together and then opened again. His face was sweat-soaked and lax with pleasure, his tongue licking at his own lips before he managed to open his eyes again. “Make me feel good with your cock,” he said. 

Bill sighed, and Alec reached over to the coffee table to pick up the lube. “I’m not going to move any faster.”

“I don’t care, I like your body on mine,” Alec handed him the lube without any hesitation. “Come on, Bill.”

And who could resist such a command? Maybe a saint, but not the man that Bill was.


	19. “No, I’m supposed to making you feel good.” | PG

“Hey,” Alec’s voice was _soft_. It was meant to be soothing, and it must have been, but just then it felt like fuel being poured on a fire. 

Bill had been loved, or at very least, people had _tried _to love him. Virginia, and Libby, had _tried_. Oh, hell, how they had tried to find a way to hold him still and make him realize that love wasn’t violent, and love didn’t hurt. That love wasn’t a shameful secret you kept to yourself. Love wasn’t keeping people at least an arm’s distance away from you. Love wasn’t hiding from the touch of your lover’s hands. Love wasn’t building fences to keep others out. Love wasn’t just sex and _tolerance _and _waiting _for things to start feeling better.

Libby _had _loved him; Bill had never quite let her get through.

Bill had loved Virginia but he couldn’t let her love him back.

And here, just here, with Alec, when his body was caught up in the magnitude of being _touched _with such tenderness. Here, in their bed, in their _home_, it caught him around the gut and it pulled him under.

“I’m supposed to making you feel good,” Alec said. 

He had been. His soft touch, and his warm lips, and the softness of his expression. Alec looked at him with adoration and it took away the pinched annoyance of his expression. It loosened him up to soft smiles that crossed his face like he couldn’t help it.

Oh hell.

“You are,” Bill said. He cupped his hands on Alec’s face and pulled him down to kiss him. It had the flavor of tears, warm and salted. Alec’s arms wriggled under his back, tightened around him and pulled him so he was off his back and _held_ him. “I promise,” Bill said between the first and second kiss. “You are making me feel good.”


End file.
